


A cruel computer's thesis

by MorteMistrata



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, Psychological Horror, Slow Burn, Survival Horror, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19800613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorteMistrata/pseuds/MorteMistrata
Summary: “Doctor,” Spock says again, but McCoy can’t respond right now, and he certainly can’t look away when the girl is liable to faint at any given moment. “Perhaps we could take this outside where the dangers are more visible. I do not think we are alone.”The girl is only an arms length away. He grins at her as she rasps, a low moan escaping her mouth.“I know it hurts, but you’re almost here, and-”She leans forward, arms outstretched, mouth gaping, but before she can touch him, Spock yanks him back a good three feet, and then pulls him to his unsteady feet. The girl snarls like an animal, and continues marching forward.“Out!” Jim orders as more figures arise at the ends of the aisles. “We need to leave, now!” The stench grows stronger, but McCoy doesn’t get a chance to really study them as Spock pulls him like a child pulling a toy out the door.In the process of editing.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted a Star Trek Zombie fic and there weren't any, so I wrote it myself.

“But have you ever actually tasted fresh homemade iced tea?”

"Sure," Christine nods and offers him a cookie from the tin on the table. It is addressed 'To the lovely Christine', from an Ensign named ‘Wilson’. Must be new, otherwise he would've known better than to try. “At restaurants, and the like, sure.”

McCoy shakes his head as he accepts it. It tastes homemade, with lumps from where it was mixed unevenly, and despite where it came from, it’s delicious. He dips it in his coffee as he continues. “That doesn’t count. See, the good stuff is grown, not materialized. Restaurants, the ones you like anyways, don’t bother to pay for the privilege. My mother had her own tea bush, a ‘Camellia sinensis’, if I remember right. And in the summer, she’d pick and dry the leaves herself, and she’d make peach tea for us kids. Though when I got older, I realized she was holding out on us. Adding bourbon made it into a Peach Julep.”

“Sounds charming. I bet you probably haven’t had one in a couple years.”

“Oh, a few colonies have the ingredients for them. On Omicron Ceti III, I had one. Shame though, that I can hardly remember it.” He finishes off his cookie, and takes a long sip of his coffee. It’s one of the few indulgences that he shells out for, even though it costs more and more the further they get from the central trade routes. “So when are you going to tell that Wilson kid that you’re not interested? After he sends a few more gifts your way?” 

Christine plucks a cookie from the tend, and bites off a small piece, a smile peeking at the corners of her mouth as she replies, “I’ve told him once that I’m not interested, but he’s got a mind to try and ‘woe’ me. If he wants to keep giving me cookies, I’ll let him.”

"As long as you keep sharing-" The comm beeps, startling McCoy before he can respond. He stands before Christine has to, gesturing for her to sit down, and answers it. “Med-bay, McCoy here.”

“The landing party has returned, and is in need of medical assistance. Please report to the transporter room.” Uhura’s voice is calm and professional, as usual, but there's a tinge of concern in her voice that McCoy just can't ignore.

“What’s happened?”

“I’m unsure. Before beaming up, Lt. Taylor mentioned that someone in her party was injured. No further details were given."

“Thank you, Uhura. I’ll be there right away.”

Christine places her half eaten cookie onto a napkin, and places the whole case into the cabinet under McCoy’s desk. As she wipes her hands off on he dress, McCoy alerts Dr. M’Benga to be on the alert, and unfolds a gurney.

“What do you think it is this time?” Christine asks as she puts a triage bag on top, and together they push it through the med-bay door, and into the hall. It's a game of theirs, to try and make up the most fantastical injuries and hoping that their own imaginations can top the strange realities that the Enterprise regularly runs into. "Someone accidentally glued themselves to a mailbox? Ooh! Or they got lost in a cornfield. Scarecrow related injuries." She clarifies.

This mission was supposed to be a surveillance mission under the guise of a routine supplies drop-off. The Beta Asinine colony was primarily an agricultural colony, with some emphasis on pharmaceutical development. For the past few months, their exports have been much less than they should have been, but a cause for such a sudden drop has yet to be identified. The obvious cause is a decision to focus on the pharmaceutical work over their intended purpose, and thus securing a position in the black market, but until the Federation has proof, they can’t legally accuse them of anything, nor take actions to halt said activity.

“Someone got drugged, or decided to be risky and try something ‘fun’, and tripped and fell.” McCoy finally says as the exit the lift. “I'm hoping it's something like that. A boring injury, if there ever is one.”

“Well, isn’t someone cynical.” As they step inside the transporter room, the laughter dies in her throat. The light dies down just as the landing body materializes on the teleportation pads. McCoy notes the redshirt first, lying unconscious on the floor. There's a large wound on his calf, and another on his right forearm. Blood has already begun to pool around him, and soaks his clothes to a hue that only an experienced eye would be able to pick out against his uniform's usual color.

“Help me get him up.” He orders to the technician. His eyes are lodged firmly on the pulsating exposed muscle, hands frozen above the console. "Hey!" McCoy snaps his fingers in front of his face, then gestures at the man. As the tech helps McCoy maneuver the wounded man onto the gurney, he looks at the others, who stand still and silent as Chapel flits between them. "Anyone else injured? Unable to walk?”

A young woman steps forward. She wears command gold. Lt. Taylor, McCoy guesses. "I can walk." Her left hand is wrapped around the opposite bicep, holding a scrap of cloth to a bleeding wound. “I’m not as bad off as him."

“I’ll be the judge of that. Come on now.” McCoy pushes the gurney out the door as Christine guides the young woman after them. He should’ve known better than to expect things to go easily, especially after such a pleasant morning.

  
###  
  


“These wounds are filthy. The scanners are picking up at least seven kinds of burgeoning bacterial infections.” McCoy frowns at scanner as if his disapproval will make the results change. "There shouldn't be more than two, or three, if he was really unlucky."

“At least?”

“Well,” McCoy removes something small and white from the wound on the ensign’s leg, and places it in a dish on the instrument table. “It's been flickering between seven and eight, but I’ve never seen a reading quite like it. It may just be a malfunction.”

“Hmm.” Christine hums thoughtfully as she unfolds the UV-C lamp and places it over his leg. It begins to tick as it counts down, shining a sterilizing light upon the injury. Most infections are knocked out by a few round and healthy dose of antibiotics. He hopes this'll be the case here too. “Hopefully it _is_ just a malfunction, but if not..."

"If not?" McCoy prompts.

"Have you read that report on the Sine-Xiri outbreak?”

“The one about the Tikiti virus jumping from Albianans to humans? Yeah, I’ve read it. It shouldn’t be like that here though. Beta Asinine was a human colony with minimal native life forms. The amount of teraforming that had to be done to make the place habitable makes an outbreak like that unlikely.”

“Still,” Christine sighs and shuts off the light. “We should keep an eye out just in case.”

“Of course, Christine.” McCoy says. “We'll be careful.”

With the worst of the disinfecting done, all that’s left for the ensign’s leg is to foster regrowth. Whatever caused the wound took out a nasty chunk of muscle, which will likely take at least a week to regrow and even longer for physical therapy for him to regain his previous strength. Christine knows this procedure just as well as he does, so he lets her set up the dermal regenerator as he starts on debridding the arm wound.

This one isn’t as deep as the other and but is much wider. It follows the pattern of a defensive injury, as if he were holding it up when he was injured. McCoy cleans the blood away, and takes a sample of the black liquid clinging to the edges of the wound. With the blood wiped away, and the shape of it now fully revealed, well, it looks quite similar to a bite mark. A human bite mark, to be exact. He turns back to the instrument tray, and picks up the white thing he’d removed from his leg. He rinses it, even though he's pretty sure he knows what it is, and holds it up to the light. It’s unmistakably a yellowed human molar.

“Christine, would you mind finishing up here for me?"

She nods, and moves to replace him as McCoy shoes away the other attending from Lt. Taylor. 

She stares blankly at the datapad in front of her, not moving, and not reading. Lt. Taylor hardly seems to notice McCoy until he's right in front of her, wielding forceps and gauze like an artist might a pencil and paper.

"Lt. Taylor," He drawls, quiet so as not to startle her. Her thousand yard stare breaks, and she meets his gaze, a nervous smile contradicting her obvious anxiety. "How are you doing? Seems like you've had quite a scare."

“Is Johnson doing okay? I’ve never seen him faint before, and he was stabbed once. This was worse than that, though. He was still laughing and joking all the way here.” 

“He’s still out, but he’s stable. Should be awake in the next few hours if not sooner. Now," McCoy smiles, trying his darnedest not to look like the scary hypo wielding doctor the rumors have him out to be. "Let’s get a look at you.”

She nods and turns so that he has better access to her arm. The wound on her left bicep has stopped bleeding, but it’s left her blue uniform an odd brownish color that he doubts will come out in the wash. McCoy pulls a tray closer to her bed, and cuts the sleeve off just above the wound.

“So what happened out there?” As he wipes away the dried blood, and removes the fabric still stuck to her skin, he can see what’s clearly a bite mark against pale white of her skin. Dark black leeches from the divots in her skin, welling up thickly with a consistency like jelly.

“It was a mess down there. Buildings were damaged, there were fires burning in some parts of the city, and when I tried to help an injured woman, she bit me! Johnson pushed her off of me, but when she fell, she grabbed onto his leg and bit him too.” Lt. Taylor digs her fingers into the cushion of the bio bed, and keeps her eyes downcast to hide the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.“I tried to pull her off, but she wouldn’t let go. Miller had to help me just to get her off, but she wouldn’t stay down, not even when he used his phaser on her! While we were struggling to deal with her, another man came out of nowhere and he-” She takes a deep quivering breath, and wipes her face on her clean sleeve. “We were surrounded by a crowd of them, and they all looked crazy, with bloody mouths, and weird looking eyes. We only barely managed to free Johnson before we were all beamed up. Another second and we would've been torn apart!”

She’s probably in shock, the details muddled as they tend to be after something horrible happens. There's likely something of the truth there. mixed in with the panic. He’ll have to talk to Jim later and see where the other reports match up to find out exactly what that truth is. From what he gathers, this could be a strain of rabies or something like it, and since she was bitten, there's a possibility that she and Johnson are also infected with whatever their attackers had.

“It’ll be alright.” He says soothingly as he adjusts the UV-C light over her arm. “I’m sure you did everything you could. It wasn’t like anyone expected combat to be involved in a routine supply drop off.”

Lt. Taylor nods, and wipes her face again. “I’m sorry. I’m not normally so easily upset. I think I’m just a little on edge because of Johnson." She laughs nervously, and something beautiful shines in the luster of her blonde hair, and upturned lips. "He was supposed to take me out for dinner tonight while we were planet side.”

McCoy moves the light away, and smiles. “I’m sure he’ll be disappointed that he missed out on having dinner with you. Why don’t you stay here until he wakes up? He’ll be glad to see that you’re okay, and it’ll be good for him to have a familiar face to wake up to.”

She nods again, this time offering a more genuine. McCoy switches the UV-C for a dermal regenerator, and cleans up the instrument table.

“Now, stay right there until Nurse Chapel comes to get you, alright?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Satisfied that his patient is not going to make a run for it the moment he turns away, he pulls Christine aside. “The two of them were bitten. It may be some form of rabies, so I want you to keep an eye on them. I didn’t want to freak her out, but don’t let her leave. This may be infectious.”

“Do you want me to send that tooth down to the lab for testing?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m going to go talk to Jim and try to see if we can make heads or tails of this.”

###

The bridge is solemn and quiet, which is quite a difference from the ‘jovial quiet’, or ‘anxious quiet’ that it usually has. At the sound of his entrance, Uhura turns, and gives him a small smile. Jim glances over at his entry, but waits until McCoy’s standing to the right of the Captain's chair to say anything.

“How are they?”

“Security officer Johnson is still unconscious, and I have Lt. Taylor under observation in the med-bay. The other two went back to their quarters to write their reports.” McCoy crosses his arms. “What I want to know is what bit them and why.”

Jim sighs, and he slumps slightly in his chair. If anyone else were watching, McCoy doubts they’d have noticed. “We have no idea. The reports I’ve read seem more like a horror novel than a mission report, and I’m not keen on sending anyone else down there until we have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“Have you tried taking a look at their broadcasting? Check the news or something?”

“I did,” Uhura says, in a tone that also means, _of course I did_ , but in a polite way. “It looks like it’s mostly automatic programming, even on the news channels. Any attempts to actually contact the surface haven’t connected for about two days.”

This rabies incident might be more widespread than he’d originally thought. If broadcasting, and interstellar communication are down, it must be pretty bad down there. He wonders how it spreads. For a transmission fast enough to overtake the entire colony within the call for supplies seven days ago, and their arrival, it would have to be airborne. Violently so.

“If you do decide to send anyone down, they’ll need their own air supply, and a containment suit.”

Spock appears on the other side of Jim’s chair so quietly that McCoy swears the green blooded goblin must be part cat. “If air transmission were the case, do you not think that the crewmen sent there are already infected?”

McCoy hopes that they aren’t, but takes solace in the fact that they won’t be able to transmit it to him or Chapel so quickly. “Possibly. They'll remain in the medbay until we’re certain.”

“By the time you’re certain, it may be too late for the rest of the crew, including yourself.”

“I don’t intend to traumatize them any further than they already have been, if I can help it.” McCoy scowls. "No need to force them into isolation chambers right off the bat."

“The logical conclusion would be to quarantine them, as the needs of the few do not outweigh the needs of the many.”

“It’s ‘logical’ to avoid worsening their injuries on supposition.” He snaps back. “And seeing as I’m the Chief Medical Officer on this ship, it’s up to me to decide what to do and when to do it when it concerns my patients.”

Spock has that look about him like he’s going to argue some more when Jim stands. “Both of you, to the transporter room. We’ll get to the bottom of this ourselves if we have to.”

As much as McCoy wishes that he could refuse, or at least put up a protest, he understands that this is the best option. Another trip to the surface is dangerous, but there is a chance McCoy is already infected, and if he’s not, he’ll need to be there to collect samples, and if necessary, help any injured they come across. Spock’s got a background in virology, and to be honest, if those reports were really honest, he’d like to have him along for safety reasons.

McCoy really, really wants to sigh, but he holds it in as he trails behind Jim and Spock to the transporter room.

###

“How are they?”

“Johnson has a fever, and he still hasn’t woken up. His vital signs have slowly been decreasing.”

“And Taylor?”

“She has a slight fever. I made her lay down, and I’ve been giving her fluids.”

“Keep an eye on them. If it gets any worse, put them in isolation chambers. And keep your mask on."

“Of course, Doctor.”

McCoy ends the call, and places his filter over his mouth. The mask seals around his nose and mouth with a hiss that reminds him of oxygen leaking from a tank. Jim and Spock are already standing on the transporter pad, and he swears that he sees a little smugness in Spock’s expression as he joins them.

“Problem, Doctor?”

“Nothing. Just complications from blood lost, and trauma.”

“Well,” Jim says, stopping their bickering before it can escalate. “Once we’re on the surface, we’ll know more.” To the technician, he orders, “Energize.”

The feeling of having your atoms broken down, moved, and put back together is small, and near instantaneous, but McCoy swears he still feels it as the ground solidifies beneath his feet, and the scent of smoke filters through his mask. He coughs reflexively, and takes in the city around them.

In the distance, a skyscraper is burning slowly, casting the city in a grey pallor. They are standing on the steps of the congress center, McCoy realizes, close to, if not the same place that the original team was sent to. The concrete is stained red, some of it wet. He thinks it might be from Johnson, or Taylor. He hopes it was not from anyone else.

Jim is the first to move. He walks down the steps, avoiding the blood stains, and what appears to be a chunk of flesh resting on the third step. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, though in the distance, he can hear something wailing.

“What… what happened here?” McCoy asks, half to himself.

“A disaster of catastrophic proportions must have shut down government functions before they could respond.” Spock hypothesizes. “Similar occurrences happened on Thine-beta 7, and on four of the Omnicron-Ceti colonies.”

“I’m more interested on where everyone is. Five million people can’t possibly have been wiped out in just a week,” Jim catches McCoy’s eye. “Can they?”

“It’s possible, though if it’s true, the Enterprise is already screwed.”

“Well, let’s find out.” Jim flips open his communicator. “Scan the immediate area. How many people are here?”

“There are six thousand four hundred and thirty-four people in the surrounding five blocks. Signals are muddy, but that's our best estimate.”

“Thank you, Sulu. Kirk out.”

“Any ideas, gentlemen?” Jim asks. The yellow of his shirt seems uncomfortably bright against the ruined city, stained in shades of grey and red.

“A concentrated search of the surrounding buildings would be the logical way to start. Buildings that would be cause for social interactions, specifically.” Spock supplies.

“Like the grocery store?” Jim points at the abandoned ‘George’s Grocers’ across the street.

“As good a place to start as any.” McCoy mutters, as Jim and Spock lead the way. As they get closer to the glass storefront, which is rendered nearly opaque with red smears and handprints, he sees a little girl in a pink dress standing near the front displays. Her image is muddied by the blood, but still, he can guess her age. “Look! She can’t be more than twelve.”

“See if you can treat her,” Jim says, “And we’ll take her with us back to the Enterprise until everything on the surface is …” He looks pointedly at the crashed vehicles, the blood stained ground, the shattered glass of broken buildings an ruined infrastructure. “Fixed.”

As they get closer, McCoy smells rot seeping through the cracked glass doors, like meat left in the sun. Jim opens the door slowly, passes it off to Spock as he walks through, who then holds it open for McCoy like a gentleman holding the door for a young lady. The smell is worse inside. Shelves are empty, or overturned, and there are containers of food littering the ground. Bags of chips, and jars of shattered spaghetti sauce pile near the front register.

“Must’ve been quite the struggle.” Jim comments as he steps on a bag of chips which pops loudly beneath his heel. “And yet, most of the ‘loot’ has been left behind.”

He hears moaning, like someone is in pain, or feverish. It reminds him of Christine’s update. This could be someone recently infected, someone who needs help.

“Hello?” He calls cautiously. “Are you alright?”

The moaning grows in volume, like there’s more than one person back there a chorus of the suffering.

Spock leans close to McCoy’s ear, and in a low voice, whispers, “Doctor, calling attention to ourselves might not be a good idea. The mission reports-”

The little girl stumbles into view at the end of the bread aisle. McCoy had seen the blood stains earlier, but he hadn’t seen the way it covers her black Mary Janes, splattering across her shins and the hem of her dress, dripping from the wound- a bite mark, he wagers- on the side of her neck, and around her small mouth like it would for a messy eater. She looks like something from a horror film, and it dawns on him that Lt. Taylor’s report might not have been as unreliable as he had first assumed.

“Darlin’,” He coos, his voice twisted into something more Georgian by the anxiety that runs through him. He squats down to her height so as not to frighten her. “Darlin’, are you all right?”

She takes a step forward on shaky feet, her right foot dragging behind her like it’s broken.

“Yeah, come ‘ere an’ let me take a look at’cha.”

“Doctor,” Spock says again, but McCoy can’t respond right now, and he certainly can’t look away when the girl is liable to faint at any given moment. “Perhaps we could take this outside where the dangers are more visible. I do not think we are alone.”

The girl is only an arms length away. He grins at her as she rasps, a low moan escaping her mouth.

“I know it hurts, but you’re almost here, and-”

She leans forward, arms outstretched, mouth gaping, but before she can touch him, Spock yanks him back a good three feet, and then pulls him to his unsteady feet. The girl snarls like an animal, and continues marching forward, narrowly missing where he just was.

“Out!” Jim orders as more figures arise at the ends of the aisles. “We need to leave, now!” The stench grows stronger, but McCoy doesn’t get a chance to really study them as Spock drags him back like a child pulling a toy, and out the door.

As they stumble back onto the street, McCoy can see the silhouettes in other buildings, the slow figures moving towards them from up the block, the low moaning reverberating through the air like a wave of something physical…

“We’re surrounded,” McCoy says, breathless. “We always have been.”

Jim snaps open his communicator, “Three to beam-”

“No, Jim! We still need those samples!” Despite how he feels, he knows that they can’t leave just yet. He’s got patients to take care of, the Enterprise potentially. “Air and blood. We need both.”

“Bones,” Jim starts to protest, but as he notes the determination on his face, he sighs, and unholsters his phaser. “I’ll set it to stun. We can try for the little girl, but we have to be quick.”

The little girl and the crowd behind her are pushing out into the street. Behind them, a few linger on the congress center steps.

He aims dead center at her chest, holds it for two full seconds, but she doesn’t flinch. 

“She should be down,” Spock says, his voice still calm, still collected. “And yet she is not. I believe unless we should set phasers to kill, it is unlikely we will be able to collect the blood sample unharmed.”

If the phasers are that high, there won't be anything left to collect from.

“Dammit,” McCoy snarls. “This was all for nothing.”

Jim calls into his communicator for a beam up.

“No,” Spock gently positions himself in front of McCoy as the crowd comes a little too close for comfort. “Now we know the true danger of this illness. We know better than to treat it lightly.”

“Those two might die for our ignorance.” McCoy says. The little girl still has his eye. She reminds him too much of his own daughter, a sight that makes him feel physically sick. “Just a small sample…”

Before either man can think to argue with McCoy any longer, the Enterprise locks onto their signals, and they are suddenly, irrevocably, back on the Enterprise.

There is still blood dried in the cracks around the pad McCoy is standing on, and it only reminds him more of his failure.

“What took so long?” Jim asks, stepping towards the technician, who seems more shaken than he’s warranted to be.

“Whatever is wrong with the people down there messed up the signal. It’s like the sensors don’t know what to make of it… There one moment, gone the next.”

The comm on the wall beeps, and Spock, being closest to the wall, answers it.

“We need Doctor McCoy at Sickbay, immediately.” Christine’s voice goes distant as she says harshly to someone else, “Keep him down! His heart is-” It cuts off.

“It seems that you've been summoned, Doctor.”

As he heads for the door, Jim places his own call. “Send two security officers to the Med-bay.”

“What for?” McCoy turns on his heel. He’s still shaken, and almost loses his balance at the quick movement.

“Bones, you saw what happened down there. If they’re infected…” He trails off, not wanting to further frighten the technician. “Well, you’re a doctor, not a fighter. Would you be able to protect yourself or Nurse Chapel?”

“I-” McCoy cuts himself off. Jim’s right. The shock still hasn’t worn off, and even when it has, he doubts he’ll be able to do what’s necessary to prevent any further violence from occurring. “Fine. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

McCoy opens the med-bay door to find Christine and one of the med-techs standing over Johnson’s still body. She has yet to drape a sheet over it, or log it, he bets, because her hands are red, and blood splatter dots her cheeks like freckles.

“Chris,” He says, voice quiet so as not to startle her. “Chris, what happened?”

“He- I- I’m not sure. He was fine, and then his fever was getting worse, and we couldn’t break it. Before I could call for you, you were back, and then he was seizing and-”

“It’s all right,” McCoy picks up a tissue from the desk as he passes by, and places a hand on her elbow to steady her as he dabs at her face. “It’s all right. From what we saw down there, I’m not sure we could’ve done anything to prevent it. How’s Lt. Taylor? Is she alright?”

“No,” The med-tech pipes up helpfully. “She’s sleeping, and has a high fever as well.”

“Alright. Did you move her to quarantine?”

“Yes, both of them.” The worst of the blood is gone, though Christine’s face is still tinted redder than it should be. The hysteria she seemed to have been going into is gone now, and he steps away as she gathers herself. “Should we quarantine ourselves too?” She asks, face neutral.

It was three, no four hours since Taylor and Johnson were infected, and the security officer also involved in the scuffle has not had any reported signs of illness. The incubation period seems to only be an hour, maybe less, and if either of them had it, he’s sure they would both be showing signs by now. Perhaps blood is the method of transmission…

“No, we’re fine. But you need to disinfect yourself. Bodily fluids are likely the cause of infection.” He nods at the med-tech. “And please, cover him with something. It’s disrespectful to have him sitting out there like that.”

As the med-tech hurries to find a sheet, and cover his corpse, McCoy goes to check on Lt. Taylor. She looks much more pale than she had when he last checked on her, and her breathing is shallow and raspy, like she has pneumonia. He checks her stats, and there is a steep decline from just a few hours ago. Carefully, he looks at her wound, and finds that despite the dermal regenerator, the veins surrounding it are dark and raised, and the new skin above the wound is purple, almost black.

He picks up the chart sitting on the bedside table, and all of the treatments he would have prescribed are there, but apparently haven’t had any affect.

The Med-bay door opens with a hiss. “Doctor?” Spock calls.

McCoy turns, and he is struck with sudden lightheadedness. Before he can steady himself, Spock is there, holding his elbow with the same tenderness with which he had done for Christine. “You seem to be unsteady. You have been on shift for a cumulative ten hours, two more than Starfleet regulations allows outside of times of emergency.”

“I’m fine.” McCoy snaps, waving him off. “Just a little dizzy. I need to keep an eye on Taylor. I can rest later.”

“If I recall correctly,” Which obviously he does, McCoy thinks sullenly. “When I or Jim overwork ourselves or refuse to take breaks which are medically needed, we are threatened with a hypo. Should I ask Nurse Chapel to do the same for you?”

And Chapel, curse her, still has a flame going for the green blooded computer, and he bets she’ll do it.

McCoy feels like he’s sighed more than enough for one day, so he settles for an ornery glare as he heads for the door. “Fine! I’ll take a nap. But I’m coming back here to check on my patient in two hours, and your threats won’t stop me then.” He plans to circle back after Spock leaves him alone.

“That is satisfactory.” Spock says, immobile until McCoy is firmly out of the med-bay and in the hall. “Do you have another theory as to the means of this disease?”

McCoy knows this: 1. This illness causes extreme aggression and cannibalistic tendencies. 2. It acts quickly. 3. It is stronger than his medical abilities are, and has defeated his attempts to delay it, at least on one count.

“It’s likely some sort of prion disease, or a virus that mimics the effects of one. We’ve always had a hard time working against those, ever since they were first discovered.” McCoy huffs. “I really hope it’s a virus. Those we know about at least.”

“I concur. It seems to be the most likely reason. However, I find the start of the illness to be less important than the transmission. Only the crew with bites died.”

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s possible, but Johnson died before he got to the violent stage, and Lt. Taylor is almost comatose, and under observation, so we should be safe from an outbreak.” Though if her condition should suddenly change, that’ll be a different story. It probably is a good thing that Jim sent those security officers down there. He doesn’t think he’d be alright with Chapel being there alone otherwise.

“Then what makes the colonists different from the crew? You all are Terran. Little must separate you, except for diet.” McCoy recognizes it now, that educating tone of his, and the leading questions. He’s trying to keep McCoy thinking on the disease, not on this forced break.

“Why all the questions?” He asks, suddenly suspicious. “Was this to-”

They stop, right outside his door in the Officer’s row.

“You sneaky, green blooded goblin! You tricked me.”

“I insured that you would actually rest, and provided stimulating conversation on the way.” If Spock could smile smugly, he’d be doing it now. Instead, his eyes glimmer as McCoy unlocks his door. “Have a good nap, Doctor. I believe the saying is, ‘Don’t let the bugs bite.’”

“Bedbugs,” McCoy mutters as he steps inside, cheeks slightly red. “You’re a computer, you know the saying.”

As the door shuts behind him, and Spock turns back towards the bridge, McCoy swears he hears him say, “Perhaps I do, Doctor.”  
  


###

The halls of the Enterprise are dotted with red. Red splatters like Pollock decorate the walls, and stain the floor, leading from hall to door to hall again. As McCoy steps out of his room, he hears screaming, just like in the city, and the persistent moan of the ill sounds in the hall like a background music. He takes a few hesitant steps outside, though he is unsure of what he plans to do. A figure stands at the end of the hall, and all at once, he knows that it is the source of the sound. He takes a step toward it, unable to deny the part of him that wants to help, that hopes there is something he can do.

Suddenly, a hand jerks him back into darkness, muffling his surprised scream.

“Doctor,” Spock’s familiar voice says quietly into his ear. “Stay quiet, or they will hear you.”

He releases him, and McCoy turns to face him. “I-” He opens his mouth to argue, but what is there to say, except, “Thank you.”

McCoy stands there awkwardly, unhappy with his demonstration of gratitude. Spock watches him carefully, eyes seeming to linger as he looks him over. “Are you injured?”

“I’m fine.”

Spock seems to ignore his hurried proclamation as he steps closer, hand trailing carefully over his damp sleeve. McCoy shivers at his warm touch, and his cheeks immediately darken after. Why is Spock being so protective, so oddly caring now? Earlier, Spock saved him, and then forced him to sleep, and why would he do that? He’s sure that if he asks, he’ll be given a logical reason, but the thought that his actions were only taken for impersonal, logical means hurts more than he cares to admit.

“Are you… well?”

“I’m-” _Annoyed; scared; yearning, though he knows not for what._ “Fine.”

Suddenly, he hears the sound of moaning close to him, and when he turns, he sees the little girl from before standing by his side. Before he can move or scream, or react in anyway, she lunges, and Spock pushes him out of the way, all in one fluid moment. Green blood sprays in an arterial spray, hot and burning on his face. He screams.

Something thuds against his door, waking him before the dream continues. Groggily, he rises. The lights turn on, and glancing at the bedside clock, he notes that he’s been asleep for nearly four hours, much longer than he’d intended. McCoy wipes at his eyes, and opens the door.

It takes him a moment to understand that no, he is not dreaming, and no, this is not a hallucination, however much he wishes it was. Standing in his doorway with a bloody hand pressed to a bite mark on her throat is Christine. Her mouth opens, blood spilling from her lips as she tries to speak.

“Hesh cameth-” And then abruptly, she falls.  
  
  



	2. Outbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to read and review!

  1. **Infection**



McCoy catches her before she hits the ground, but only just barely. He presses his fingers to her neck, and sighs in relief when he feels a faint pulse. He presses her hand to her throat more firmly, hoping that the method that got her all the way here might get her back, and scoops her into a bridal carry. He stumbles as he adjusts to the extra weight, and then runs as fast as he can towards the med-bay. There are two long hallways between him and the medbay which add up to mean two minutes; two minutes could be too long, but by god is he going to try anyway. 

Running through the hall, he can see the blood trail she left on her way to his room, and in the back of his mind, he knows that she’s lost too much. Modern medicine can do a lot, but _ she’s still bleeding _ . One of the infected patients must have had a sudden upturn, real sudden if Chris didn’t have the time to call for him. 

McCoy can see every place that she stumbled, brushing against the wall, or stood in one place too long, causing blood to pool as it ran down her hand, her slender wrist, to the tip of her elbow, and then the floor. Panic, unbridled and unrelenting courses through him. It’s not any different from any other case of trauma, not technically, but how the hell is he supposed to treat this as normal? It’s Chapel who’s next to him as he treats his patient; it’s her who helps him put them back together. How is he supposed to do this when it’s her, one of his closest friends, who’s bleeding out beneath him?

They’re almost at the med-bay, and they haven’t passed a single person. He knows this floor, this area specifically is often lonesome, but why today is it so empty? Why now when he could use anyone- anyone at all- for help?

Chris’s free hand rises slowly, and strokes his cheek. He looks down at her face, and immediately knows that she's not doing good. Her eyes are clouded and unfocused, and her skin is unnaturally pale. 

“Hold on, Chris. Hold on.”

McCoy grits his teeth and runs a little faster, using whatever extra strength the adrenaline has given him to push through to the med-bay, charging right through the doors and into his desk. He sweeps the knick-knacks off of it and places her down. He grabs the first tool tray in reach, and grabs the rapid-growth dermal regenerator, holding it above her gaping wound. The skin should be knitting up before his eyes, closing the veins and creating a thin layer of new dermal above it, but nothing happens. The device blinks red in a steady rhythm. He throws it at the wall with a shriek. 

McCoy doesn’t want to admit that she’s- He won’t believe it, not until he feels it with his own two hands. He takes a deep breath, peels her hand away from her throat, and feels for a pulse. Nothing. 

McCoy sniffs, rubs his face with his sleeve and walks over to the comm. 

“Med-bay to bridge.”

“Bridge here.”

“There’s been an emergency. Christine is-” McCoy’s voice breaks, and he is forced to take a deep breath to calm himself before he continues. “Christine was killed. I need the Captain, and Mr. Spock to come to med-bay, please.”

“Oh, Leonard…” Uhura’s voice is soft, and sorrowful. They were friends, the two of them, and he doesn’t doubt that the news hurts. “They’re on their way.”

McCoy turns around, back to the wall, and slide down until he’s sitting, knees pressed against his chest. His mind is still racing, struggling to juxtapose the knowledge that they were talking just a few hours ago with the corpse lying on his desk. He looks at his hands. Blood coats his palms, runs around the back of his fingers, and down his wrist. He’ll have to scrub at it to get it out of the crevices of his fingernails. 

How did it happen? There were two security officers in here with her. Lt. Taylor couldn’t have been much of a challenge for two trained officers. Speaking of, where are those security officers? They couldn’t possibly have been fatally attacked too… McCoy looks around the med-bay for the first time since he entered. Medical instruments litter the floor, like there was a squabble near the beds. The trays and UV-C machine have both been knocked to the ground. McCoy pulls himself to his feet, and walks over to it, righting it with one hard shove. The bed it was sitting next to was Johnson’s. The bed is empty. 

McCoy scrambles back, nearly falling over as his back hits the bed adjacent. 

His body should not have been moved. It’s protocol to hold a viewing for friends on board before doing any autopsies, or otherwise bothering the corpse. 

Behind him, something clatters to the floor. 

McCoy turns toward the door. He hadn’t thought they would get down here so fast. After all, there’s four floors between the bridge and the med-bay, but-

It’s Christine. 

The relief hits him so hard it hurts. He races over to her side, wondering just how he made such a large mistake as to pronounce her dead. Does this illness cause death like symptoms? It would explain why the Enterprise had a hard time locating them planetside.

He pushes the thought aside as her hand rises weakly and clutches at his shoulder. 

“Chris?”

The hand that had been around her throat rises too, her palm stained a moist russet red.

“Chris, don’t move, you should be dead, you-” Her bloody, moist hand tangles in his hair like a foul mimicry of a lover’s embrace, and she yanks him toward her gaping mouth.

McCoy manages to pull back before her teeth meet his cheek, but Chris seems to have a kind of strength he never could’ve expected from a woman like her, and he can’t shake her grip. As she lunges forward, the sudden shift in weight makes him lose his balance, and he falls to the floor, with Chris landing on top of him. He groans as the impact knocks the air from his lungs. This woman should be unconscious, if not dead after all of the blood she’s lost, but she snarls, and tries to bite him with the vigor of a woman possessed.

“Shit!” McCoy pushes against her chest with his forearm, his other hand pushing against her shoulder, but his hands are wet and her shirt is drenched and it feels almost impossible to keep a hold on her. “Chris, snap out of it!”

If Christine understands him, she doesn’t show it. Her uniform rides up to her waist as she pushes against him, revealing much more leg than she ever would knowingly do in her struggle to reach his throat. McCoy tries to shove her off, but her fingers dig into his shoulder, ripping his shirt and drawing four dark lines of blood. If anything, the appearance of blood makes her more frantic. 

She snarls, and lunges with a ferocity that pushes his arm a few inches closer to his chest. McCoy moves his other hand from his shoulder, sacrificing another inch, and tries to push reach for his phaser, but goddammit! He must’ve taken it off when he went to take his nap.

“Shit.”

He can’t hold her off much longer with the inches he’s already given up, and the angle that she’s pinning him at. A solid punch would push her off of him, but she’s  _ Christine _ . They were having cookies just this morning; he can’t find it in himself to hurt her, especially when she’s ill. 

Chris’s nails drag against the side of his face, and when he flinches at the pain, his arm falls. Her mouth gapes open, teeth backlit with red falling towards him, and he closes his eyes, hoping that it might hurt less if he doesn’t see it happen. 

Her weight is gone.

Jim stands over him, offering him a hand. McCoy takes it, wincing as the movement pulls on his shoulder.

Christine is on the ground a few feet away, Spock standing over her like a warrior triumphant. She tries to stand up again, her movements slow and clumsy, but a simple push has her on the ground again, arms and legs splayed out like an abandoned doll. 

“Let’s,” McCoy clears his throat and tries again. “Let’s get her in a bed. I’ll tie her down, and maybe we can understand what’s going on.”

“That would be ideal.” Spock says as he grabs one of her arms, and attempts to steer her towards a bed. She reacts like having one of arms held behind her back doesn’t hurt, and tries to lunge at McCoy, and then Jim as he walks toward her. “This is extremely out of character for Nurse Chapel.”

“I thought you said she was killed,” Jim says as he grabs her other arm. 

“She didn’t have a pulse. The dermal regenerator wouldn’t work on her. She should, by all counts, be dead.”

“And yet,” Spock says as the two of them guide her to the nearest bed, the one Johnson died in, and force her on her back as gently as they can. “She seems to be quite lively.”

Jim is careful to keep his hands on her shoulders, avoiding her breasts as he attempts to keep her still. Spock holds her hands down as she attempts to reach for whoever’s closest. McCoy pulls out the straps and secures her as tightly as he can without hurting her. 

When they all step back, and she remains bound, McCoy turns on the machines above her, and waits for her heart rate to appear. 

“Everyone who was here with her is gone,” McCoy says. He crosses his arms. “The security officers, Lt. Taylor, and Johnson’s body. All gone without a trace. The room was like this before I came in. I think-”

The machine begins to beep as it finds no pulse, minimal oxygenation in the blood, and an impossibly low number of active nerves. The two of them look to McCoy, but they both know what it means. 

“Jim, she’s dead.”

Jim rubs the back of his head, forgetting about the blood staining it, and deflates. “Is that what you think happened to the other two? Johnson and uh, Taylor?”

“It would be logical to assume that Nurse Chapel’s state is the same as the rest of the infected.” Spock says in that annoyingly calm way of his. “And given that all of the afflicted have been bitten, it is more than likely the mode of transmission.”

“Then you’ve got five known infected walking around this ship, Jim. What do you suppose we do about it?”

“Bones, you try to figure out what’s going on and how we can stop them. I’ll put the ship on red alert. Spock, see if you can figure out where the other infected went. If we can cut off parts of the ship, we can try to keep it from spreading.”

“The doctor is wounded, and given that Nurse Chapel is,” At the sound of her name, he and Jim glance over at her. She’s snarling, and gives no sign of recognizing her own name. “Currently incapable of performing any medical duties, I am the next most qualified to give first aid.”

“I can do it myself,” McCoy says. Spock’s real assignment is much more important than patching him up. “Or I could call Dr. M’benga. No need for you to wait around on account of a few scratches.”

“Given the current state of emergency, it would be best to leave Dr. M’benga in his quarters for his own protection. Your wounds must be treated before further complications arise, as I’m sure you’re aware of, Doctor.”

McCoy scowls. The scratches on his cheek and shoulder sting as if to prove Spock right. “I’m aware of the possibility of infection, Spock, but it seems more prudent to figure out where the infected have gone. I likely won’t be the only one,” He swallows. “Surprised by a sudden visitor tonight.”

“Very true, Doctor. Which would make your continued well-being a priority.”

Jim pinches the bridge of his nose, and turns towards the door. “Spock, fix Bones, and then figure out where they went.” He gives McCoy a stern look. “Bones, be a good patient.” He slips out into the hall.

McCoy pulls himself up onto the nearest clean bed and huffs, “Says the man who’s scared of hypos.”

“I believe,” Spock surveys the floor for an unopened first aid kit, and finding it under his desk, kneels and picks it up. “That you are much the same as the Captain in regards to medical care. While you insist on the treatment for others, you resist medical treatment for yourselves quite irrationally.”

Jim does, for certain, but McCoy doesn’t think that he should be lumped in with a man who avoids his physical until the day before he would be forced to relinquish his Captaincy without it. 

Spock opens the box, notes the disarray, and goes for the simplest tools; bandages, and accelerated healing cream. There’s a few hypos in there full of preventative antibiotics, but for the moment, thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice them.

“Furthermore,” Spock continues, his fingers warm and gentle as they brush across his cheek. “You both also seem to have quite a sacrificial streak, often putting yourselves into unnecessary danger. Unlike the Captain, you are unequipped and unprepared for what that usually entails.”

“I’m a doctor. It’s in my nature to care for others.”

“Your empathy is not in question. Your unwillingness to let others care for you is.” Spock studies his cheek with the intensity he usually has for an interesting rock sample, or atmospheric anomaly, and declares, “There is a chance of scarring for the second and fourth scratches. I am unsure of the procedure necessary to prevent it.”

McCoy really isn't sure what to make of what Spock's said, so he decides to ignore it and instead focuses on his not-question.

"Pass me a mirror. It might need stitches."

Christine's hand mirror is on the corner of his desk, likely pushed there when he set her down. McCoy’s adrenaline rush is leaving him, and at the sight of her mirror, he just feels drained. One of his closest friends is apparently dead, a pandemic is likely starting on the Enterprise, and he has no idea how to fix it. If the day could get any worse, he doesn't want to know how.

Spock hands him the mirror, and carefully, he flips it open. The scratches across his left cheek are deep enough that the blood hasn't stopped, and the two that Spock pointed out are at least a centimeter or two deep. He sighs. 

"Yeah, they need stitches. I can do 'em."

"While you might be able to complete first aid on yourself under normal circumstances, I highly doubt that you would be able to do so now." Before Bones can complain, Spock takes his wrist, and flips his hand palm side up. "You haven't washed your hands yet, and you are feeling emotional distress. It would be irresponsible to allow you to perform medical procedures on yourself."

"You've got better things to do than coddle me!" McCoy stands, and turns towards the door. "Go do them, and leave me be!"

"No."

That hand on his wrist again. McCoy can't break his hold. He doesn't even have to try. Spock watches with something he can't decipher in his eyes as McCoy sits back down, feeling thoroughly like a chastised child.

They don't speak as Spock rummages through the med-kit, produces a threaded needle, and begins to stitch. It hurts, but McCoy ignores it. He doesn't want to prove Spock any more right than he already has. As Spock pulls the stitch taut, Uhura's voice sounds over the intercom. 

"Attention all crew. We are on Red Alert. Repeat. We are on Red Alert. Remain where you are unless requested by a superior to change locations."

"Think it'll help any?"

"I think not talking will expedite the stitching process." Spock says pointedly.

"Answer the question and I'll shut up again."

The needle enters his cheek and he winces. Spock waits a moment to be sure of his silence, and then speaks. "Crewmen do not always follow instructions. Those who wish to change locations, or who find one of their infected associates outside may let them in, thus spreading the infection. As we do not know the location of the original infected, they could potentially already be wrecking havoc on the ship."

McCoy doesn't dare talk with a needle going in and out of his cheek, but he fixes Spock with a look that says, 'Get to the point.' 

"It is unlikely that a red alert without giving more concrete information to the crew will only result in slowing the outbreak, rather than stopping it."

Spock finishes the second row of stitches, sets it back in the case and peers at his shoulder. He must judge it well enough to heal without the aid of stitches, because he pulls away with the intention to rub the healing cream on, but McCoy has dignity, and grabs the tube from him before he can open it. 

"I can finish up here." And then more quietly, he says. "Thank you."

Spock nods, and content that McCoy will actually go through with the treatment, starts towards the door. Just before leaving, he pauses. "I will attempt to find the infected and will update you as soon as I can."

And then he's gone. 

It's just him and Christine now.

Before anything else, he washes his hands. Blood washes down the sink, the water slowly fading from red to pink to clear. He rubs the healing cream on his wounds, wincing and hating himself for wincing at it, and bandages them. His scrubs are ripped and bloody, but his undershirt is clean. A small blessing, but one he appreciates. There's a spare under his desk, which McCoy dons, and then with nothing left to do, turns to the task at hand, which is easier than thinking about the way that Spock lingered, or the way the warmth of his hand still lingers on his skin. 

Christine. 

She's still straining against her bonds, a low moan transitioning to snarls as he gets closer. Her blonde hair is mussed, lipstick smeared across her mouth, her uniform wrinkled and bloody. She looks nothing like the woman he loves like a sister. She looks nothing like the woman called Christine. 

McCoy pulls on a pair of gloves, and picks up the tools scattered around the beds. He has a mostly full tray, and considers that good enough for now. He records her vitals, same as before but with worse oxygen levels. He wants to check her neck wound, but she starts snapping whenever McCoy's hand nears her face. 

"A gag should work," he tells himself. "Though I don't imagine it will be particularly pleasant."

McCoy hardly has a use for one, as it's usually obvious when someone is heading towards a mental breakdown, but he does have it. Top drawer of the cabinets in the back of the medbay, he remembers, and as he goes to get it, the intercom flares on again.

"We need medical assistance on Deck 3, section D-7."

And then right after, just for him, "Doctor McCoy, the Captain has requested that you remain in the Medbay and continue research on the infection. Acknowledge."

McCoy grabs the gag, and goes back to the comm. "McCoy here. Acknowledged. What's wrong? I can prepare a bag for him before he goes."

"Twelve crew attacked by another crew member. No- reports are coming in crew, one already dead." 

"What area of the ship? Are they all human?" 

"They are all human. Eighteen injured, four dead." In the background, he can hear something banging on the door to the bridge. Faintly, there is the sound of someone screaming for help. 

"We'll open it carefully." Sulu says. 

The door must've opened. Whoever was out there must have come in. But Uhura is silent, whether in shock, or fear or simply because there is nothing to say, he is unsure. 

And then he hears Chekov's thick russian accent shrieking, "Get off of him!" The sounds of flesh meeting flesh, an all too familiar snarling, and then- silence.

"Uhura?"

"Nyota, come in?"

Most of his friends are on the bridge, and it takes a lot of work to keep his mind on his job rather than on what's happening there.He can't squash the sense of worry that fills him at the realization that this attack means Spock's failure, and possible injury. And Jim, where is he? If he were on the bridge, wouldn't he have said something? 

_ No,  _ he tells himself.  _ You are not allowed to worry. You are not allowed to let your emotions rule over you.  _ They are all capable, intelligent people and he is sure that they'll be fine. 

Chris is still snarling on her bed, but there is no sound beside it. The red alert has closed and locked his med-bay doors, and for good reason, but he unlocks it, hoping that someone else will come dashing in like he did, and he will be able to help, unlike what happened with Christine.

McCoy gathers up most of the equipment off the floor, leaving the smaller things where they lie. Everything is in disarray, nothing is where he needs it, but he doesn't have time to organize them. Someone will be here soon, and until then, he needs to know exactly what they're up against. 

He goes to Christine again, this time not hesitant as he places the gag in her mouth and tightens it, and begins his examination. Her neck wound no longer bleeds, but a black, thick substance seeps from it, and stains her veins blue-black on her wrist and her legs. He collects a sample, bottles it carefully, and sets it on his desk. McCoy's knick-knacks crunch under heel.

He'll need to take that down to the lab, but that's halfway across the ship. If he leaves, then there'll be no one here to help if someone needs medical attention.

They went over this choice back in Starfleet, and he knows that the answer is to choose the many over the few. If he leaves, he will potentially save the ship. If he leaves, he could potentially damn it too. If only he weren't alone, McCoy could gamble for both.

Luckily for him, he doesn't have to choose. 

Sulu stumbles through the med-bay doors half carrying, half dragging Chekov. He looks like a monster, drenched as he is in black-red blood. McCoy drapes Chekov's other arm over his shoulder and guides him to a spare bed on the other side of the med-bay from Chris. 

"What happened?"

There is a shoelace tied like a tourniquet above Chekov's knee, and his pants are ripped away (not ripped, McCoy reminds himself, chewed) revealing a calf gnawed down halfway to the bone. 

"We let in Yeoman Rand, and there were three of them behind her. I- we knew them, but they didn't recognize us at all. I grabbed Rand and pushed her out of the way, and the man behind her came for me, and Chekov, well, was Chekov. He shoved him back and shut the door on them, but that one man got stuck in there with us." His voice shakes. "Chekov took the worst of it for me."

McCoy doesn't ask how he managed to get out. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Disinfect, right now. Don't let any of that get in your mouth or your eyes." 

Sulu nods, and McCoy focuses entirely on Chekov. The tourniquet has stopped the worst of the blood loss, but McCoy doesn't know if it's stopped the infection from spreading. He thinks it might only take hold after death from blood loss has occurred, but he honestly doesn't know. He thinks of the reason behind his nickname, and tastes bile in the back of his throat. Alone, and without any idea of what's truly going on, it's the only option he can think of.

"I'm going to have to amputate it."

  
  



	3. To each our own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been writing and rewriting this chapter for the longest and I'm sick of looking at it. So please, take it. Take it and comment.

“What?” Sulu’s voice is an octave too high. He pauses comically, or what would be comically, above the sink, soap dripping through his fingers as he turns to look at McCoy. “Amputation? We- have you even done one the whole time we’ve been out here?”

“If I did, you wouldn’tve noticed.” McCoy retorts as he cuts away the rest of the tattered pants around the wound. He leaves the tourniquet on as he searches for the rest of the tools he’ll need for surgery. “You’re a helmsman, not a doctor. Finish washing your hands. I might need your help.”

“But you just said-”

“I know what I said.” McCoy rights a tray and places a new sterile paper over it. He leans against it for a moment and sighs. “Just- Just let me think, will you? And keep washing your hands.”

McCoy goes over it all in his head as he pulls anesthetic from one of the drawers. The Enterprise has been through enough during it’s voyage so far to understand that every single emergency procedure in the book, no matter how odd, or nonessential it sounds, will inevitably be used at some point. Call it Kirk’s law. So in turn, McCoy’s made sure that the medical team understands what to do during an epidemic, and what to do during a mass casualty event. Hopefully, his nurses and doctors figure out how to combine them, because if this whole… infection thing were to be classified, it would have to be something between the two. 

If they did, there should be a collection of nurses and doctors on each floor in the rec center, or meal hall, depending on which is closest to the center of the floor. But the halls are supposed to be sectioned off to prevent the spread of the infection, and he has no idea how far the plan got before then. 

There might be a few nurses on the floors above and below, but the ship is in chaos, and he doesn’t want to risk more lives than he has to trying to save this one. Not to mention, he still needs to get that sample down to the labs. He glances over at Sulu, who is still standing over the sink, watching the water fall from the faucet. The water runs clear off Sulu’s hands, and surprisingly, they do not shake. 

“Alright,” McCoy says, setting all of the tools down. He doesn’t stop moving- can’t stop, not with how much time has passed already- and drapes him. “Put on some scrubs, and a pair of gloves. I’ll help you if you need it.”

He pulls the UV-C machine over to create a sterile field, as Sulu steps away from the sink, staring at him with the blank sort of look one has when the adrenaline wears off and the trauma settles in. 

“I thought you said-”

“Well, now you’re a nurse.”

Sulu isn’t used to being in the med-bay. Out of all of the suicidal idiots up on the bridge, he’s one of the few who knows how to avoid danger for the most part. He really only ever visits when he’s bringing others down, namely Chekov, or during his scheduled check-ups. 

McCoy steps away from his patient- Chekov is under for at least an hour, maybe more depending on how his system deals with the blood loss and infection, He can wait for a moment, he decides as he pulls a pair of sterile scrubs and gloves, and holds them out to him like a mother offering a towel to her child as he steps inside from the rain. 

“I could try to call a nurse here, but if the infection got all the way to the bridge, it’s undoubtedly all over the ship by now. I doubt they’ll be able to get here unscathed. If I am to save Chekov’s life- and I intend to try to the best of my abilities-I need a nurse. I need your help, qualified or not.”

Sulu frowns, but picks up the scrubs. McCoy leaves him to it, and intends to go back to Chekov for final preparations when the comm rings once more, loud and startling against the quiet hum of the medbay. He carefully steps through the mess still on the ground- less than it was before admittedly, but still a mess nonetheless- and answers it.

“McCoy here.”

“Are you… unharmed?” The hesitation is Spock’s voice is slight, but not slight enough for McCoy to not notice it. If today has taught him anything, it’s that the details matter. He’s just not sure what to make of this one.

“I’m no worse for wear than when you left. I have Chekov waiting on a biobed for an amputation though, so we’ll have to make this conversation quick.”

Another slight pause. A millisecond, if that. “I presume that the Medbay is not under siege?”

“...No?” ‘Under siege’ is the phrase one uses to describe a war scene, the kind of thing that happens to outposts close to Romulan or Klingon borders, not here on the Enterprise. “How bad is it out there? How’s my staff holding up?”  _ Are you okay?  _ “Where are you?”

“There are at least seventy known infected on board currently. Sixty-four percent of the crew are safely quarantined. However, the remaining are mostly congregated in engineering, deck seven A, and the bridge floor. Most of the infected are surrounding these areas, although there are small groups scattered throughout the Enterprise.”

That’s pretty concentrated. Just a few floors above and below where he is now. So there’s a possibility that he could get there with the sample unharmed. A chance is all he needs. “What about the labs?”

“Unknown.”

McCoy exhales. Sulu has his scrubs on, and is struggling with his gloves. Spock still hasn’t answered all of his questions, not the important ones, but he needs to start his surgery now. There isn’t anymore time to squander. “Spock, where are you?”

“I am in Ensign Rovelt’s room.”

Mccoy waits. Spock doesn’t say anything more. If McCoy strains his weak, human ears, he thinks he can hear the sound of flesh on metal; a solid resounding orchestra of heartbeats just outside his door.

“Spock, answer me. No games. No lies. No bullshit. What’s. Wrong?”

This time the hesitation is more than audible. “I am currently confined to Ensign Rovelt’s room. I believe Jim to be somewhere in this hall. There are twelve infected in the hallway.”

McCoy’s breath halts somewhere in his throat, threatening to suffocate him. “How long? How long until they get inside and you-”

“Doctor,” The gentleness in his voice. Not condescending. Not snarky. Not any of the other hundred ways to describe their usual bickering. Gentleness, a sound which he swears he has never heard before, drips from his voice and it makes him want to yell, or scream or  _ cradle his cheek tenderly and tell him- _ “You have your task, and I, my own. Do your duty, and I shall attend to mine.”

The comm cuts off. No goodbyes, or well wishes, or answers. Just silence and the sound of Chekov’s vitals beeping steadily behind him. 

McCoy stands there for a moment longer. He’s seen Jim almost killed at least six or seven times now, and he’s seen Spock get pretty close to death more than once, though less often than the disaster prone Jim Kirk. If he wasn’t so cynical, he’d think that they were some kind of immortals; blessed with luck and a danger streak a mile wide. 

“Optimism.” He mutters to himself. “I’ll be optimistic.”

Sulu has a glove on. The other dangles half off of his hand as he stands above Chekov’s bedside, worry as visible on his face as the stars outside the viewing screen. McCoy tugs Sulu’s glove down until it’s on snugly, and puts on his own sterile scrubs.

“Now let’s go save his life, alright? It’s a simple procedure. I promise you’ll do fine.”

And then, as if to contradict him, the lights go out. 

Sulu holds his breath, and then counts out loud, slowly. “One, two, three, four, five.” He pauses expectantly, and the med-bay is cast in red as the emergency lights flicker on. “Lady Luck blesses us with light. What do you need me to do?” 

This procedure is simple. More or less, machines take care of the bone sawing, and would’ve guided him around the infection, ensuring that he doesn’t cut too much or too little flesh. McCoy isn’t an engineer, but he can assume something is wrong with the engines, probably the dilithium crystals, and the power supply to the rest of the ship has been disrupted. Life support will remain on for a while. For how long he isn’t sure, but everything else: replicators, unessential power drawing devices, all of that is unusable. If he’s going to do this amputation, (and if Chekov is going to live, he has to), then he has to do it by hand. No machines. No help. His nickname comes back to him, the meaning in particular. ‘Sawbones’. The irony is sickening.

“Change of plans.” McCoy moves aside the useless equipment cluttering his tray; UV-C, sterilizers, laser bone cutters are all shoved onto an open bed. He pulls the set out carefully from the third drawer of his desk, and places it in the empty spot left by his equiptment. “We’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.”

“You’re going to cut it off with that?” Sulu gawks, eyes wide at the bonesaw lying across the table. It’s teeth gleam menacingly in the light. 

He generally regards this kind of surgery as a type of butchery, but Sulu doesn’t need to know that. There are a lot of bad things going on right now, and little he can do but worry. But this,  _ this  _ he can do something about. He takes a deep breath, sets aside all of that emotionality that Spock always chastises him about, reaches for a ten blade, and begins to cut. 

“It’s a process, Sulu. I’m not going to hack his leg off with it. It’s more delicate than that.” Blood wells up, red and healthy, and McCoy is thankful for that much. As far as he knows, the infection hasn’t spread yet, or at least hasn’t taken hold. “Now, pass me one of those rags.”

  
  


McCoy is only halfway done with the procedure when the door to the med-bay slides open. He knows better than to look away from the delicate procedure he’s doing, but Sulu has no such qualms. He turns, hip grazing the tray as he makes eye contact with the interloper. 

“Are you infected?”

A fine choice of first words, seeing as there’s little else more important than infected status in the moment, if it is a little impolite. Sulu’s tone leads McCoy to think that it’s someone he knows, rather than a random ensign.

“Probably not, if the method of contagion is through bodily fluids. I was only scratched.” Doctor M’benga replies wryly. 

It takes a moment for McCoy to finish sealing off the artery he’s working on, and by the time he finishes and gets to looking up, M’Benga’s gone over to the sink and has begun to wash up in preparation to join him. 

The bone still needs to be cut, and the muscle needs to be debrided and shaped, but Chekov is stable enough for now to allow McCoy to step away.

He steps back and peels off his gloves, wipes the sweat from his palms onto the sterile paper scrubs covering his stained and torn uniform, and then takes that off too. “Not that I’m ungrateful for your help, but weren’t you supposed to stay in your quarters until further notice?”

“Oh, of course I was. I figured you needed my help though after I started receiving the calls. Those young doctors, they understood the gist of what to do, but we’re all so in the dark about this…” He shakes his head, and then his hands, flicking water into the sink before drying them off properly. “It’s chaos out there, but controlled chaos. I had to climb my way here. Go through every floor, and only about a third had infected roaming them. The others were locked down tight.”

“So it’s possible to move between floors? How are the labs? And floor 7A?”

M’Benga shrugs into his scrubs and stands beside him, peering at the dissected mess of Chekov’s leg. The gnawed portion leads up to the cut like a zipper up a dress. “I didn’t get a chance to look around, but I made it here. Why? Do you have something else to do?”

McCoy takes the remains of his surgeryware and tosses it in the trash. The sample he’d taken from Christine is still sitting on his desk. He hasn’t forgotten his original dilemma, now made worse by the new information Spock had given him. The needs of the few or the needs of the many? Take the sample down to the labs, or try to make his way to his friends?

“Doctor?” Sulu asks, stepping away from his friend with reluctance. “I ran here too. After we got Rand inside, and Chekov looked at, they started to drift away from the door. Likely found someone else to chase after. And I picked him up, and I ran.” He peels a glove off, reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out a phaser. “I don’t know if this will help or not, but if you’re going-”

“I am.” Sulu nods at it, handle facing towards him in offering. McCoy doesn’t like weapons, but he passed training for it, just like everyone else did. He takes it and slides it into his waistband. “Thank you. If you don’t hear from me within the hour, one of you’ll have to try and bring a sample down to the labs. It’s our best shot at-” He doubts reversal is an option. “Dealing with it.”

M’Benga nods, already tuning in to the surgery at hand. 

“Will do, Doctor.” Sulu promises. 

McCoy grabs his bag from his desk drawer, always on hand for his inevitable call to an away mission, and slips the sample inside. He pauses before the door, offers a prayer, or something akin to one to whoever is out there listening, and steps outside. 

The hall is empty. There are streaks of blood staining the grey walls, but no other signs of life. As far as he knows, he’s all alone. The state of the Enterprise reminds him of his dream, and pauses to listen for the moaning he had heard planetside. Nothing. 

He allows himself to relax as he heads down the hall towards the Jefferies tube that leads up to the next floor. The Enterprise will never be his home. Home for him is Georgia, with her warm weather, and constant greenery, big front porches and long winding drives. If he ever does feel like he belongs here, it’s because of the people. Because of two specific people. If anything were to happen to him-  _ to them,  _ well, McCoy doesn’t want to think about it. 

McCoy pauses by a comms station, and presses the call button. It lights up, but doesn’t connect. He scowls, and hits his fist against the wall. The Jefferies tube leading up is just a few feet ahead. The one leading down is a bit farther down the hall. The choice still needs to be made. Try for the labs or for his friends. 

He knows what he should do. Starfleet’s prerogative is simple: save as many lives as possible, and to do that, he needs to go to the labs to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it. What he wants to do is the exact opposite: Save the few; Save his friends. 

Philosophers have argued time and time again, man has had to chose, has decided which is right and which is wrong, but it’s so easy, isn’t it? To say that one choice is better than another when you’re not the one making it? 

McCoy already knows what choice he’s going to make, damn the consequences. Spock’ll be mad at him, though he’d be hard pressed to admit it. Jim won’t bother hiding it. He laughs, like steam whistling through a kettle, walks to the tube closest to him and starts to climb. 


	4. Culminations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized some things:  
> 1\. this is a horror story.  
> 2\. halloween is here.  
> 3\. I should post.
> 
> So here: Have my update. I will be mia during november for nanowrimo and I'm sorry for what I did.

Sound travels oddly in that small, rounded space, and so at first, McCoy thinks it’s music. Low, and musical, like Uhura’s voice echoing from the rec room on Game night. He thinks it might be someone’s way of letting people know that it’s safe there, but as McCoy pulls himself up the last few rungs, and pokes his head cautiously out the top, he realizes that it’s nothing of the sort. 

There are five people standing down the hall, no further than ten feet away. He sees a pair of long, pantyhose covered legs with large holes on the back of the right thigh and left knee. Thick, black ooze stains the cloth around the tear. McCoy dares peak his head over the top, leaning precariously over the top at an angle that would allow him to fall back to safety on the floor below if something were to disrupt his balance. Given the choice, he thought injury from falling was better than potential infection. A man with his right hand missing stands next to the stocking- woman, his sleeve torn to reveal dark veins trailing up to his collar, where the tattered remains of his shirt once again brought it into shadow. A few more stood around them like they were huddled together for a good gossip, all of them wounded and bloody and miraculously still on their feet. 

He wonders how exactly the disease manages to keep it’s host alive; although he had theorized that it was a was a prion disease, the supernatural ability to keep those poor people moving despite their injuries was more virus-like in nature. But then that lends the question-

One of the infected jumps, a snarl escaping it’s throat as it bumps into one of it’s companions. McCoy winces, his hands covered in sweat making it hard to keep a grip on the smooth, metal rungs. He searches for the the next jefferies tube, suddenly resenting that he didn’t pay attention to Scotty during one of his many monologues about the beauty of the Enterprise’s architectures, and finds the leading ladder peeking over a tall, brown haired head. 

Things never seem to be easy for him, he thinks disparagingly. McCoy hooks his left arm through the ladder, conscious of the dangers a fall could potentially incur, and grabs the gifted phaser from his belt. 

McCoy had had the training, like every Starfleet officer must, but he’d never much liked using them. Of course, he’d disliked hand to hand even more, and so of the two modes of fighting, he is better at handling a phaser than he is at using his fists. He adjusts it from ‘stun’ to ‘kill’- even if they were resistant to the stun, nothing could survive a phaser’s full charge- and aims at the center of mass of the group. The first shot destroys the panty-hosed woman, followed by a wave of guilt so strong he nearly hits the wall with his next shot. It just barely grazes the shoulder of another man. None of them react to the sudden disappearances of their comrades, or the heat, or the light. Nome of them do anything at all as he picks them off one by one, reminding himself with each shot, ‘They’re dead, Leonard’. 

When the crowd is gone, he finds that the phaser is down to half charge. McCoy grimances, and tucks it back in his belt. He climbs up to the hall, and without checking for further company, dashes to the next tube. As he passes by the spot where they had congregated, he notes the large, tacky puddle of blood on the ground, most of the color tainted by that black residue which mixes with it like oil. He wonders- and shuts down that part of his mind as hard as he can. What he just did was either murder or mercy. Someone else can be the judge of that, after he finds Spock and Jim. He begins to climb.

Spock had said he was in Ensign Rovelt’s room, which was on floor 7a. Only three more floors to go. He considers that this maybe the only good luck he’s had throughout this whole thing; if not for having to process the Ensign’s request to switch from medical blue to labwork last week, he likely wouldn’t have remembered where it was at all. McCoy’s hand comes off of the rail with a tacky squelch. He grimaces, but ignores it, and pulls himself up to near the top, and peers over the top. 

A face snarls, teeth bared and lined with red. Blonde hair tickles his face, and for a moment, he thinks  _ Christine?  _ A hand grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him closer to it’s gaping teeth, and McCoy reaches for his phaser. His hand grasps the handle, he raises it, pressing it between them as he pushes at it’s chest, then pulls back, and fires. 

McCoy is breathless. He leans heavily on the ladder, sinking down a respectable distance as his heart pounds mercilessly in his chest. 

It would have been so simple for those teeth to have dug into his hand as he reached up, or to have fallen into his neck had he been a second late at the trigger. He could have been bit and then Spock would be screwed. His shirt is so thin, and provides so many vectors for infection. 

McCoy exhales, long and deep, and then pulls himself up once more. At the edge of the jeffereies tube, there’s a puddle of blood that drips down onto the rungs, providing the stickness he guesses. Whoever it was must’ve been there for a while, bleeding out until they finally rose again. There’s a streak heading back in the other direction. Luckily, there seems to be no others in the area at the moment, or least none between McCoy and the next tube. He pulls himself up, crosses over to it, and silently curses whoever thought it most logical to make the jefferies tubes shift on each floor instead of shooting straight up. Oh yes, this was a simple way to prevent a clumsy Engineer from falling the 50 stories to the bottom of the ship, but by god did it make for an annoyingly drawn out trip. 

On the right of the ladder, McCoy can see the door to one of the rec rooms. It’s closed, and looks clean, so he has high hopes that if there are people there, if the plans ever got that far, that people are safe there. 

McCoy doesn’t spend time in the rec rooms often. In his free time, he stays in his office, or his room, or else is with Jim, who is almost always with Spock. Spock, though he would be loathe to admit it in such honest terms, enjoys playing his lute for an audience, and often did so here. The first time he’d seen him play was about a week after they’d left Argus Seven’s disease ridden refugee camps. McCoy had finally left his office, his paperwork finally complete. Chapel had gotten one good look at him, and invited him to get a drink with her. 

‘A good drink and some company will do you good, Leonard.’ She’d said with a smile, leading him to a table near the center of the room. ‘Brandy?’ She’d asked, and without waiting for an answer, headed off to get it. 

McCoy had been tired, dead tired, and he was sure that the look on his face was one unsociable enough to prevent any excitable ensigns from striking up unwanted conversations. He’d sat there, head in his hands, and just as Chapel had sat back down with their drinks in hand, the most beautiful music began to play. It wasn’t terran, but it was slow, and felt to him like an afternoon at a lake.

It was strings, he knew that much, but because of his weariness, it took a moment for him to figure out where it was coming from. Chapel must’ve recognized the question in his eyes, because before he could ask, she raised a delicate finger and pointed. 

‘Mr. Spock plays. Sometimes Uhura sings with him.’

McCoy had turned, watched his long fingers pluck at the instrument with the ease that came with years of practice, and somehow, fell asleep. It was the first time he’d slept without nightmares since the camps. 

Shaking off the warmth of the memory, McCoy turns back to the ladder and climbs. Two left. 

Upon reaching the highest point of the tube wherein he is still relatively safe from view, McCoy considers the possibility of another infected waiting for him, unseen, at the edge. He checks his phaser. Still at half juice. 

If the infected respond to sound, which it seems they do… He holds the phaser in his teeth- very much against safety regulations, but who’s here to report him?- and reaches down to tug off his boot. He throws it in an upwards arc, and hears it land with a clatter on the floor. 

McCoy waits, phaser ready. There’s no other sounds, be it footsteps or moaning. He pulls himself up, and replaces his shoe. 

The smell of burnt meat greets him, and he has no need to wonder what caused it. The lights flicker, signifying an electrical failure of some sort on the floor. He grimaces as he connects the dots, and starts for the next tube. Behind him, something shrieks, and instinctively, he knows to run. As he reaches for the rungs, and pulls himself in, something reaches for his ankle. It’s fingers hook into the leather of his shoes. McCoy grips the rung harder, and reaches for the next, but with the weight on his leg, he can’t get a good hold. With his free leg, he kicks at the hand, which is then followed by a face framed by red hair. Frantic now, he kicks harder, grunts of effort escaping him as his foot drives into his face and then turns to the ladder, pulling away until his shoe slides off, and his socked foot is revealed to the cool air. 

The thing gets closer, full body filling the bottom of the tube as it reaches and McCoy pulls himself higher to evade it. He crouches just below the opening to the next floor, the final floor, and holds himself there, wondering if it’s even worth testing for those above with all the noise he’s made just getting on the ladder. He shoots the infected below him, and then looks up, finger on the trigger. 

Spock is on this hall, either still waiting, or dead already. Vulcan strength can do many things, but McCoy doubts that it can take on that many while keeping himself from being infected. McCoy has no chance of taking them on, but maybe, just maybe he’ll be able to even the odds. 

Nothing has responded to the sound of the scuffle. His phaser is getting low, but he’s hopeful. McCoy takes a deep breath and peers over the edge. There’s a crowd twenty feet away standing outside of what he assumes is his destination. That there is still a crowd confirms that the door is unbreached, and that there is still someone to save. McCoy doesn’t have enough charge left to take them all on. Phasers weren’t meant to be used on lethal power for long; it was a checks and balances of sorts that prevented too many deaths from being accumulated from a single weapon. Those checks and balances were going to cause deaths today. 

McCoy notes the room directly next door. It’s maybe ten feet from the other, which means that they share a wall. While the phaser might not have enough juice to get rid of the infected, it might be enough to cut through a few walls. 

Carefully, quietly, he pulls himself up, and steps on the floor, socked foot first. He holds his breath, and takes a step forward. If they notice him, he’ll have to make a run for it and hope that the door will allow him access. 

One of the women in the group is familiar. Her back is turned, but he’s sure that it’s Barrows, the girl he’d been flirting with on shore leave a while ago. The pain hits him hard, and he can’t stifle the gasp that escapes him. Barrows turns- and yes, it’s her- and he has the choice: shoot, or run for it. He doesn’t know how much juice he honestly has left, or what he’ll need it for. 

McCoy dashes forwards. His stockinged foot squelches as he steps in something wet. Barrows opens her mouth hungrily, a ghastly moan drifting from her throat as she starts towards him. He was only a few feet left, two bounds maybe, when the others turns, and shuffle towards him. McCoy slides to a stop, his hand grasping on the doorframe stopping him from spilling into the crowd. The door recognizes him and slides open, and he gratefully falls into the gaping darkness within. 

The sounds of moaning grow softer behind him, muted by the door between them, and McCoy takes a moment to just breathe. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. The emergency lighting casts the room in an eerie red glow. 

He made it. He did it. Leonard Horatio McCoy is no damsel, and has in fact, maneuvered himself into saving the day. Wouldn’t his mother be proud, he thinks wryly. All that’s left is to cut through to the other room. 

McCoy peels himself from the ground, very much aware of where exactly he will be aching in the morning, and heads over to the connecting wall. He bangs on it with his fist, and cupping his hands around his mouth, yells, “Hey, Spock! You in there?”

“I am indeed where I reported to you earlier. Why aren’t you manning the med-bay?”

McCoy, just for once, would like Spock to just say, ‘Gee, thanks’. 

“I’m rescuing you, you ungrateful, green blooded hobgoblin.” McCoy can feel it in the silence between them that Spock has more to say on the matter. It can wait until later. “Now stand back, I’ve got a phaser, and I’m going to cut through the wall here.”

“I have moved to the west wall. You may proceed.”

McCoy lowers the phaser intensity to the minimum power necessary to cut through the wall, and draws an unsteady circle. It’s small, but as it cools down, it’s obvious that it’s large enough to fit a man through, with some finessing.

The hobgoblin himself peeks his head through as soon as it’s cool. McCoy would very much like to deny the relief that hits him like a train at the sight of him, but it’s too audible in his voice to even bother trying. “You’re okay.”

“I am uninjured.” Spock confirms. He pulls back, and then enters again with his feet, and then twisting to fit his torso through. As he straightens up, now on the same side as McCoy, his eyes narrow on McCoy’s hands like a hawk. “You are covered in infectious material. Are you uninfected?”

McCoy looks down at his hands, realizing that in his haste to cross from floor to floor, he’s soaked both his hands and the bottoms of his sleeves covered with blood, which is still fresh enough to glisten. “Oh, this?” He crosses over to the vanity sink and washes his hands. Most of the blood washes clean down the drain, though it still stains his clothes. “I’m fine. Just dirty is all.”

“And what of your post?” Spock asks, coming up behind him as if to supervise. 

“M’benga is there, finishing up Chekov’s surgery.” 

“Why did you leave it?” The words are quiet, nearly drowned out by the sound of the infected’s beating fists against the two room doors. “Why risk coming so far to reach me?”

McCoy’s handwashing falters as he considers the question. 

Spock reaches for his right hand carefully, moving so that everything he will do is telegraphed. It doesn’t make him any less graceful as he holds McCoy’s wrist with one slender hand, and takes the phaser away with the other. His other hand stays touching his wrist, Spock’s chest pressed along his backside as he places the phaser down on the counter beside the sink. 

“You are an emotional man, Leonard McCoy,” Spock says, stressing his name in that near imperceptible way of his. “But you are not illogical. That was dangerous, and there were more important things to do.”

McCoy swallows. “Finding the FIrst Officer is plenty important.”

“No man is more important than the overall welfare of the ship.” Spock’s eyes meet his in the mirror. “‘The many above the few’, is one of the tenets that they teach every cadet, Doctor. You knew the right choice to make-”

“The right choice was to save your life, Spock!” McCoy turns to face him, and finds himself utterly pinned between the sink and Spock’s piercing gaze. “I’m not ashamed of it. If you and Jim were dead at the end of this, and I hadn’t even tried, I would’ve…” He’s not very sure of what exactly he wants to threaten, as Spock’s reaching for his hand again, this time outstretched in question.

McCoy meets him halfway, their hands melting into something more intimate than merely hand-holding. 

“You are an illogical, fascinating individual, despite your many emotionalistic flaws,” The movement changes into something different as in the room behind them, the door gives, and company starts flooding in. Spock tugs him behind him, his other hand grabbing the phaser and drawing their exit on the opposite wall. “And if we should survive this plague, I would endeavor to change the nature of our relationship.”

McCoy snorts. “You mean that you like me too.”

“A most apt description.”

Spock leads them out into the hall, and they break apart as Spock ushers McCoy down the Jefferies tube and onto the floor beneath it. The few infected that are left in the hall stumble towards them, as McCoy disappears inside. 

He more or less does a controlled fall, landing hard on his feet, and then moving out of the way so that Spock can follow. The thud he’d made upon landing might’ve attracted another one, he thinks as Spock appears beside him silently. He hands McCoy the phaser once more, though it is now near empty, likely with only a single shot left in it’s battery banks, and heads towards the next one. 

Right next to it, a crowd of them await, looking up with rapt attention as they come into view. 

They turn on their heels, and head in the opposite direction. The infected follow after them, slowly, but doggedly. The sound of moaning is suddenly encompassing, and Mccoy realizes too late that his previous travels have told them all where to congregate to await their next victims. 

“Spock,” He grabs his sleeve as they come ever closer to the tube they had just taken. “I think they heard me. They know to wait there for us. It’s not safe.”

“Neither is the lift.” Spock retorts. Another group of five stands near it, their voices growing louder at their approach. “There is no safe method of travel across differing levels at this time.”

They backtrack, heading for the hall between the two.

“We can use the shaft if we have to.” McCoy points at the upcoming lift, and presses the call button. 

On either side of the hall, they are fenced in. There are a few doors around them, but he can hear the sound of bodies hitting doors, and knows that simply running inside one is not a risk he’s willing to take. The lift chimes as the elevator arrives, and the doors open. Spock turns at the sound, and then McCoy is on the ground. He hears Spock grunt, sees his body shift as he presses the infected against the opposite wall, and raises his phaser. As Spock pulls back, he fires, and the two of them tumble into the lift. The doors close before anyone else joins them.

McCoy, breathing heavily, turns to look at Spock. His hand is pressed to his bicep, and green bubbles up through his fingers. 


	5. The cornered rat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okee, so I finally was able to get this out for you guys, and before the holidays no less! We're nearing the end. I think only one chapter between us and the conclusion. Don't worry though. For my next Spones story, I'll be writing a Western. I've had the idea in my mind for ages, and once I finished my self indulgent zombie fic, I shall make my self indulgent cowboy fic. Thank you all for reading and commenting!

The air burns as it fills his lungs, like acid instead of oxygen. McCoy’s head feels like it’s a balloon about to pop; a familiar ache like the pressure of being too high up with too little air. 

When he’d walked into his house that night, and found the leather jacket with Clay Treadway’s name embroidered into the collar, he’d felt much the same. As he’d walked up those stairs, each one feeling like a nail hammered into the coffin of their marriage, he’d felt much the same way. It was all of the worst things that a man could ever feel in his life. Hopeless, and hurt, and desperate for it all to be wrong. McCoy doesn’t think that opening that bedroom door was as hard as this. 

He pries Spock’s hand away from his bicep. The hole missing from his sleeve reveals the source of it. A bite mark, near perfectly indented into Spock’s skin.

McCoy swallows, and forces out the words lodged in his throat. “You’ve been bit.” 

“Evidently.” The corner of Spock’s mouth twitches, as if the situation is somehow humorous. 

Maybe it’s shock. Maybe it’s the infection starting to take hold. After all, McCoy still has no idea how the infection works, if his amputation did anything for Chekov other than mutilate him. McCoy rips the hem from the bottom of his shirt with a strength he can’t quite believe that he possesses, and ties it just above the bite as a makeshift tourniquet.

The medical sciences are a contradiction; they require both emotion, and logic for them to work, yet too much of either can be a hindrance. There is little room for fear or panic, and so McCoy compartmentalizes it, and pushes it deep, deep down inside, far away from the connection to his mouth, or his steady hands. 

Green blood drips from between Spock’s pale fingers, and into a growing puddle on the floor by their feet. McCoy’s socks are wet. They squelch as he leans forward, and gently peels Spock’s hands away from the wound. The blood flow has slowed, but that could mean anything. McCoy rips another strip free, and wincing at the uncleanliness of it, wraps it around the wound. It may be infected, but covering it could prevent it from getting any worse. 

“I honestly don’t have any idea on how this infection will react with your biology. We need to get to the labs as soon as we can, if I’m going to have a chance at stopping it.”

McCoy reaches forward to press the floor button, but Spock catches his hand. 

“It is uncertain if there will be infected on that floor. Given the small space of the lift, my injury and our lack of other weapons, another confrontation would not end favorably.” Green smears McCoy’s pink tinted skin. So much blood has touched his skin today already. 

“There are no other options. If I took you back to the med-bay, or if we tried to find another phaser- those are valuable minutes that we don’t have. The best way-  _ the only way _ \- for us to save the ship,”  _ to save you _ “Is to go to the labs _ now _ .”

If Spock would ever frown, he would be doing so now. 

“It is-”

“Logical.” McCoy interrupts. 

He presses the button. The lift begins to fall in shuddering, halting bursts. Whatever power is left in the backup battery, intended to prevent people from being trapped within them in a case of emergency, is not a lot. McCoy is certain that it won’t bring them all the way down. At best, it hopefully will be far enough to prevent them from being trapped with another horde. 

“I’ll take point,” Spock says. He raises his voice, anticipating McCoy’s interruption. “I am already infected. Additional bites might decrease the time before terminal levels are reached, but it would be detrimental to the ship to potentially lose another high ranking officer.”

If McCoy’s going to flaunt his ‘logicality’, he supposes that he can’t really argue with him when Spock does it too. The lift shudders to a stop, and the lights flicker into darkness. 

“Fine,” He grumbles. “You can lead.”

The doors slide open before his eyes adjust. Spock shoves McCoy behind as gently as a panicked movement can ever be. Outside, the hall is dark and silenced. The lift chimes. 

McCoy’s socks stick uncomfortably to the floor. Spock peers outside, the movement almost feline like. If not for the circumstances, he might have laughed. 

Apparently, the hall outside is up to muster. He nods at McCoy, and steps into the hall. 

The lights are mostly out; either shattered or out of power. Glass stains the ground in regular intervals. McCoy can hear the slight hum of the elevator disappear into silence as they take careful, quick steps towards the end of the hall. He can’t tell if it’s unfamiliar because of the lighting, or his panic, or because he’s just never spent all that much time on whatever floor this is. McCoy risks turning back to the lift to glance at the floor number above it- 5-A.

The labs are in 4-B. They aren’t too far off, but given the circumstances, even that may be too far.

Spock stumbles over something with uncharacteristic clumsiness, and McCoy reaches out to grab him. His fingers hook into his sleeve, and he only barely keeps the two of them upright long enough for Spock to reclaim his balance. 

There’s a woman on the floor, her bowels erupting from her midsection like a flower on a backdrop of command yellow. Spock carefully steps around her, his hand tightening unconsciously into a fist by his side. 

“Do you think Jim’s alright?”

“We made quite a ruckus upon escape. I am certain that if he is indeed on the floor that we vacated, that there is no longer any immediate danger to losing sanctuary.” Spock replies.

“That doesn’t mean that he’ll have the good sense to stay put.” McCoy frowns grimly. He knows Jim well enough to be able to guess at his next course of action. “But you said he might not be there. What made you think that he was?”

“Security Officer Miller returned to his quarters after debriefing. He hadn’t uploaded the data from his tricorder as of the time of the outbreak. I brought this to Jim’s attention before communications were disrupted.”

McCoy had all but forgotten that there was a third on that landing party. Miller… that’s right. Lt. Taylor had mentioned him in her story. If they had data from their trip, it would make sense to try and retrieve it to shed led on what was going on.

“Are there any other places that he might have gone?”

Spock doesn’t reply. McCoy clears his throat, and is about to repeat himself when his eyes adjust to the darkened corridor, and he realizes what it up ahead. 

There was carnage in the other halls, yes, and lots of stomach turning injuries, but nothing like this. The entire section of the hall, from the ground to the floor to the ceiling, are all stained red. Not just splattered, but painted in shifting layers of thickness. Some of it still moves in thick drying streaks, dripping into thick puddles by the base of the walls. Viscera lies in clumps, and an intestine dangles from a light fixture. Towards the other end of the slaughter room, bloodied hands streak the walls as bare footprints leads into darkness. 

McCoy swallows the bile pooling in the back of his throat. He takes a deep breath and the scent of gore fills his lungs, making him feel sick all over again. He turns to Spock, for distraction, to make sure that he’s okay, and realizes that he’s not breathing. 

“Spock?”

Spock shakes his head, and points through to the other side. McCoy can’t tell if it was intentional, but he doesn’t see any other way that it could have ended up like that otherwise. Somewhere farther down, the light from a perpendicular hallway shines like a beacon in the darkness. 

“We’ve gotta go through  _ that _ ?”

“In order to reach the way to the lab, yes.” Spock’s voice is thin, like he’s running out of air. “I am running out of time.”

McCoy doesn’t want to focus on how scared he is right now, so instead he looks at his feet, and then the way ahead, and thinks,  _ My socks are going to be disgusting. _

“Alright. Let’s hurry then.”

Despite the intent, they have no choice but to walk at least somewhat slowly so that McCoy can avoid cutting up his feet on the glass. Blood is probably another infection vector, but it will do no good to try and test that theory. Halfway through, Spock begins to breathe again, air rattling through his lungs like the heaving breaths of a starving wolf. 

McCoy looks up at his expression, and blanches at what he sees. 

Spock is composed. Spock is unemotional. But right now, Spock wears, instead of a human look or disgust, or even Vulcan apathy, an expression of  _ hunger _ . 

McCoy picks up the pace, grasping Spock’s wrist in an effort to guide him through the carnage sooner. His socks are soaked, all the way up to the ankle, and knowing what the wetness is makes his skin peel. Something falls from the ceiling behind them, and he jumps, clinging a little harder to Spock’s arm than Vulcan propriety would normally allow. As they finally step through the last of bloodied area, the scent of exposed flesh grows stronger. 

McCoy looks up at Spock, something about the horror of it all on the tip of his tongue, and notices that his teeth are clenched so tightly that his mouth looks like a mockery of a smile. His eyes are focused on something ahead, as if he hadn’t heard McCoy speak. 

“Talk to me, Spock. What’s wrong?”

His eyes are trained on whatever’s ahead like an eagle that’s found it’s prey. 

“Spock.” He barks again. 

Finally, he starts, and looks at McCoy. 

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone waiting up ahead. I can,” His mouth wrenches slightly in what might be disgust. “I can smell them.”

While it’s been common knowledge for a while that Vulcan senses were much stronger than human ones, Spock had never mentioned scent as being one of them. “You can-”

“Quiet.”

The hall is dim from the broken lights, but there’s enough to see the outline of a person up ahead. They are hunched over and misshapen, their head casting strange shadows as the light from the hallway beyond casts their silhouette in contrasting darkness. It’s the wrong shape for a human being; too different to be within the homaid genus that Vulcans, Humans and Romulans belong to. There are only a few non-humans on board. One of which is Spock, obviously, and the others are the Andorian ambassadors who were to travel from one of their previous destinations to Station Amrex thirteen, which the Enterprise was set to stop at for scheduled shore leave until they were redirected to Beta Asinine to investigate. 

Spock’s probably already come to the same conclusion, if he can really smell the difference between species. 

The question of what exactly this affliction does to non humans suddenly seems very prudent. Considering the mess behind him, McCoy doubts that it’s anything good. 

McCoy can hardly see it, his depth perception all messed up by the poor lighting, but the Andorian moves further ahead, maybe by a few feet, providing a small gap to reach the doorway to the next hall. McCoy is no engineer, but he’s pretty damn sure that the nearest jefferies tube is in that direction. 

He gestures at the general area, and mimes walking with his fingers. Spock’s eyes flit from McCoy’s hands, to his face. He nods curtly. 

They start forward once more, McCoy lingering a half step behind Spock to alleviate his fears, though he may be loathe to admit to them. His feet are uncomfortably wet, and each step is accompanied by a squelch that seems to echo along the damp corridor walls. Spock’s shoulders tense, but there’s little to do about it. His bare feet would slap against the floor just as loudly. 

Spock slows the pace as the distance grows shorter between them and their goal. With the light nearer, McCoy can make out the details of the Andorian. Grey skin instead of the usual sky blue, hardly visible through the thick coat of dark blood which covers it’s clothes and pale, white hair. It jumps, twitching like it’s got something running underneath it’s skin, and the eeriest moan seeps from it’s lips. It makes McCoy’s skin itch.

The squelching is quieter at this pace, more spread out so it sounds more like water dropping than wet footsteps. Still, it sounds louder than Spock's near silent inhales, and the rasping of the infected's song.

When McCoy had complained about the dangers of space, he had always assumed it would be the cold, or lack of air that would get them. Not the isolation, and certainly not some strange, violent disease. Feeling much like the stupid protagonist of some b-list horror film, McCoy holds his breath, and reaches out for the corner of the wall, drawing himself towards the all clear as Spock faces the infected, prepared to deflect it's advances if neccesary.

McCoy pulls himself around the corner as inconspicuously as possible, placing his feet against the ground as quietly as he can. Behind him, Spock shifts, something like a growl rippling from his chest. McCoy winces, and his foot comes down abruptly. 

"Shit!" He yelps, regretting it as soon as the exclamation of pain leaves his mouth. He can feel the glass, at least an inch deep in his foot as he tries to hobble forward. 

Spock shoves him, and McCoy flies a good six feet ahead, tripping over his own feet as he tries to regain his balance. He turns on his heel, trying to avoid putting weight on his injured right foot. 

Behind him, Spock is grappling with the Andorian. His arms are braced around it's upper arms, as it claws ineffectually at his chest. Spock's got the upper hand in both strength and height, but with the ferocity of it's attack, he can't reach the junction of neck for a Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

Spock risks removing his uninjured arm to punch it in it’s bloated gut. The Andorian keels over, it's skin pulsating like its three hearts are just beneath the surface, and not beneath three thick layers of bone. Blood begins to flow from it's eye sockets, and down it's quickly bloating cheeks, coating it’s skin in a new layer of gore. It’s body shakes, shoulders lurching like it’s about to throw up. It’s attacks slow, and become more ineffectual, swiping less at Spock and more around him. 

It’s a half-thought- the image of the bloodied wall, and the violence of the Andorian’s shuddering, seem connected somehow, if only by a thread. 

“Spock, get back!” He whisper-shouts, but it’s obviously not audible over the sound of their grappling. 

McCoy hobbles up behind him. He wrenches Spock’s hand off of the Andorian, pulls him backwards. Spock stumbles, tripping over McCoy’s feet, making him slip. He’s still holding Spock’s arm, and when he falls, Spock falls on top of him. 

Spock sit up, but before he can move, a wave of warm, thick liquid hits him. Spock takes most of the hit, but a thick splattering of it strikes his legs, and the left side of his body, coating his arm and torso. The warmth feels good, for a moment, but then it begins to cool, and he just feels wet, and uncomfortable. 

Spock rolls off of him, wipes at his face, and offers McCoy a hand. He slips McCoy’s arm over his shoulder as he gets to his feet, which is somewhat awkward given their height difference, and together they start to hobble down the hall. McCoy can see the ladder up ahead, ducking down into the floor. For once, there’s not a single obstacle between them and their goal. Nothing but their own injuries hold them back.

“What happened?” Spock asks, but with blood coating his face, his teeth bared, and his eyes nearly black, it’s hard to concentrate, to put that bad feeling from before into words. “Doctor, your hypothesis?”

Hypothesis. What a funny word. It was more like panic, some deep instinct that all living creatures have when danger lies not three feet away. 

“McCoy,” Spock pleads, and finally all of it connects. 

“He wasn’t human,” McCoy states, obvious though it is. “He wasn’t human and it interacted…  _ differently _ with his physiology. And that’s supposition, I don’t - I don’t really know.”

“In the future,” Spock says, turning so that McCoy can only get the barest glimpse of where the Andorian used to be. “Please refrain from ‘coating the truth’.”

“Sugarcoating.”

“I believe the supposition that you referred to, was the question of what the infection might look like due to my own unique physiology, was it not?”

“It was.” McCoy admits, and with it, just how hopeless this all might be. If this disease can cross species, than the whole Federation could be at stake, never mind Spock. A disease like this, a chimera, which is able to take from its host and change at will, is nigh impossible to defeat. If they don’t figure out how to beat this, then the Enterprise, and everyone on it, will have no choice but to be destroyed. 


	6. Finale

There are certain rules that even Starfleet Captains can’t bend. McCoy does not relish knowing them, because the circumstances that call for those rules to be enforced are also the circumstances that require the most empathy. The Enterprise might not be lost, but given that this disease has been proven to jump species, both with Spock and the Andorian, he’s sure that it falls under the One for All Law. ‘If a population under one million constituents are determined to pose a biological threat to the Federation and it’s members, the population will be quarantined, and destroyed, if found attempting to escape in order to protect the greater population.’

The example most often heralded is Delta Pheramine. The colony was settled in the southern reaches of the planet, and for a good thirty years did well. But as the planet began to warm, diseases frozen in the ice near the poles released as the ice melted, releasing the Sherman virus. It had a ninety-seven percent fatality rate, and was transmitted through both air, and water vectors. The planet was quarantined, all escaping spacecraft shot down, and for the past five years, there has been nothing but radio silence from the quadrant.

Up ahead is the next Jefferies tube. Spock waits for McCoy to lean on the wall, keeping his weight off of his injured foot, and then begins to climb down. His eyes are nearly all black, the iris hidden by his overly wide pupil, and it contrasts sharply with the paler than usual pallor of his skin. McCoy watches his head slowly disappear against the slight angle of the tube.

His shirt is ripped, and his socks are wet. The ache in his foot is slowly spreading up his lower leg. Jim is missing, and Spock is infected. He can _smell_ the difference between infected and non infected. It brings up so many more questions than it answers. These thoughts come from the cool,scientific part of him, and are like balm on rough waters. McCoy knows that there are other thoughts, mostly fears, or anxieties, or anger, brewing just beneath him, but he has to keep a cool head. He can’t let them take over when there’s still a job to be done, and he’s certainly been in situations where death was more assured. Somehow it doesn’t help. 

“Clear.” Spock calls.

McCoy grasps both sides of the ladder firmly, and does an odd sort of hop-scurry down until Spock grabs his waist, and maneuvers him the last final feet to the ground. He can feel the quiver in his arm, a rare show of weakness. Nonetheless, he lifts Mccoy’s arm over his shoulder before they start off again. What a pair they must look like, hobbling down what must be the only clean, unsullied part of the ship looking like extras out of an old horror movie.

“We’re not far off,” McCoy says unnecessarily. He hopes that Spock sees it as a roundabout way of complaining about his hurt foot rather than worry for Spock’s well-being. “Only a few more minutes, if nothing else decides to throw a wrench in the works.”

“We are precisely three point seven six minutes away from the lab.” Spock corrects. “When we arrive, what theories will we be investigating?”

Spock’s got baseline data to compare his current state to, so he should at least be able to discern what exactly the affliction is doing to him on a molecular level. It’s a curse just as much as it is a blessing; Treatment will be difficult, as there’s no guarantee that whatever cure he might come up with will work given his odd biology. All he can really do is hope that this is just a nasty virus. If this disease is prion based, they’re screwed. Chimera diseases rarely are, but at least it’s not completely impossible.

“McCoy?”

“You might as well just call me Leonard.” He grumbles. “We’ve gone through all of this,” He gestures vaguely at the hall around them. “You’ve earned it.”

Spock is quiet for a moment, and thinking so goddamn loud that McCoy can practically hear it. “Thank you, _Leonard_.” His says his name deliberately, as if tasting the syllables as they pass over his tongue. 

It’s not that Spock has never said his name, but it’s rarely so intently; it startles McCoy, and so it takes a moment for him to remember the initial question and to formulate a reply. 

“As for theories, I might have a few. Best not to speculate though.” 

The last Jefferies tube is right ahead, between a communication box, and a knocked over tool kit. Spock helps McCoy over to the wall, and bends down to pick up a standard issue wrench. Rust decorates the hinge. 

“This is not up to regulation, but it will suffice for our purposes.”

“Try to keep off your injured arm.” McCoy advises. He’s starting to get used to balancing on one foot. Maybe he should try becoming a flamingo instead of a doctor, if he survives this. It’ll be safer, for one. “Vulcan voodoo, or not, it’ll make your injury worse.”

“I will endeavor to follow your instructions.” He says wryly. 

McCoy feels too old for the way his words make his cheeks burn with something warmer than embarrassment. 

Spock tosses the wrench down the tube, and waits for some reaction down below. After a satisfactory amount of time passes, he begins to climb down. Going down one handed makes his movements clumsy and halting. As his head disappears, McCoy starts to climb down after him. He takes a step with his injured foot, and fire blossoms from his wound and up to his knee. Without his permission, his leg bends, and he slides down the last few feet, landing heavily despite Spock’s attempt to catch him. A smear of blood decorates the bars where he’s slid down, socked feet staining the cool metal with violent russet red.

Neither of them comment on their apparent lapses in strength. Spock offers his shoulder once more, but McCoy shakes his head, and opts for using the wall instead. McCoy pushes down the instinctual urge to make a comment about his likeness to being a computer, and instead looks into the rooms lining the hall as they pass them by. While he had cursed the spacing of the Jefferies tubes earlier, now, he’s thankful for it. They’ve climbed down directly to 4-B. _They’ve made it._

Down here, it’s mostly storage rooms, libraries, and other rooms of academic or scientific interest until the labs. The hall is mostly untouched, or at least as untouched as anything can be, given the situation. There’s a few spots of blood streaking the walls, where a stumbling person might have touched against it, but it appears to be going in the opposite direction. The doors are all closed, and with the ship’s power down, it’s so quiet that it seems as if they’re the only ones around. If there were people down here before Uhura sent out the alert, they must’ve listened and stayed put. The sign for lab one is straight ahead. 

“We should consider the possibility that a cure might be found before amplification occurs,” Spock says almost casually, nudging the wrench against the wall with his shoe. While there still might be infected here, the energy that carrying the wrench would drain is not worth belaying the potential risk. Still, it’s uncomfortable to leave behind. Lord knows McCoy won’t get far if it comes to running again. “We prepare for that eventuality.”

McCoy presses his lips together in a thin line. 

If McCoy can’t fix this, Spock will be incredibly dangerous as an infected. Previous encounters have proven that they don’t seem restrained by pain or the general need to keep oneself from overworking, which keeps a person from pushing the body to the absolute limit. Spock is superhuman on his worst days. Without any restraints holding him back…

McCoy won’t let that happen. Figuring out this disease might be impossible, but he can fix it. He’s done the impossible before. He’ll break the laws of physics if he has to in order to save those that he cares about.

“It’s not a possibility. I’ll figure it out. You’re not becoming one of those _things_.”

“You are not unintelligent.” Spock says, somewhat kindly. “It might happen, and if it does, do you think you could stop me from hurting you, or tearing the ship apart?”

“I’ve done it before.” With a hypo, which may or may not work considering that Christine had appeared dead, and medicine is not for the dead. But he doesn’t mention that. “Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean that you should be treated inhumanely. That’s fear talking, not logic.”

The first of the labs comes into view. The sign listing the lab director reads, ‘Lt. Markham’ above the door. McCoy turns to it, but Spock grabs his arm, and he stops. 

“It’s not illogical to make preparations for a probable outcome, nor is it illogical to protect the CMO of the Enterprise in a time of crisis. I believe that is the same line of logic you presented to me earlier regarding your decision to look for me instead of heading directly to the labs.”

“There was more to it that that.” McCoy grumbles, but Spock’s right, loathe as he is to admit it. He leans against the wall, and continues forward. Behind them, a fading trail of an odd and awkward gait reveals their taken path. “But fine. What do you suggest?”

Spock points at the end of the hall, at the last sign set farthest from the jefferies tube, and hopefully, any other human life. “Isolation. We work in Lab 10, and if I begin to transition to a viral amplified state, I will alert you. If you restrain me, and leave, I should be restricted long enough for you to return to Med-bay and do what needs to be done.”

McCoy doesn’t like it. He’s never liked running away, and that’s exactly what this feels like. 

“Fine. Lab 10 it is.”

The last few feet are somehow harder than the rest of the trip. Just the sight of sanctuary makes the air harder to breathe, and his leg ache a little more. 

“We’re here,” He says, placing his palm against the cool metal door. “We made it.”

“Indeed.” Spock says, stepping forward and banging his fist lightly against the door. It’s loud enough to echo inside of the room, but it hardly makes a noise in the hall. Nothing moves inside, and so he types in his access code, and the doors slide open. “Where would you like to begin?”

The lights flicker on at Spock’s authorization. The lab smells sterile, and the walls are white and familiar. While most of the machinery is working due to Spock, the computers are still offline, as it would take much more energy than the ship can currently provide. Still, it’s something.

McCoy points to a chair near the fluid analyzer as he takes the first aid kit off of the wall. “I’ll treat your arm before we get to any testing.”

“You should attend to your own injuries.” Spock sighs like a tire releasing air as he carefully perches himself on the seat. How stupid to hold onto his Vulcan rigidity, even now. ( _How admirable,_ McCoy tries not to think). 

McCoy sets the first aid kit on the table beside the analyzer, and hobbles over to the sink to wash his hands. “I will.” 

He doesn’t look at the water swirling down the drain, and hurries to dry his hands before hopscotching back. 

McCoy peels back the makeshift bandage, which comes away stickily, clumps of brown and black clinging to the fabric and to Spock’s skin. He winces in sympathy, and dabs at the wound with hydrogen peroxide until the scrap of McCoy’s shirt, now a ghastly purple instead of his usual blue, comes off. He sets it on the table, and examines the wound. The bite mark is still clearly visible against Spock’s pale skin. Blood still seeps from a few of the deeper punctures, but not enough for McCoy to worry about blood loss. What does worry him is the deep veins of black emanating from the wound, and spreading outwards towards the tourniquet and his hand. It would probably be worse without it.

It’s a basic first aid kit. McCoy makes due with what he has, and bandages Spock’s arm. He replaces his makeshift tourniquet with the one from the kit, and takes the blood sample. As the analyzer runs, McCoy takes a seat on the counter beside it, and finally, thankfully, pulls off his socks. He drags his foot across his knee, wincing as it pulls on the cumulative hurts patterned across his body. Like he’d thought, a jagged shard of glass protrudes from his heel.

Spock gestures to McCoy’s injury. “May I?”

McCoy bites back the urge to say something snarky about following doctor’s orders, and Vulcan obstinance. It’s obvious that he won’t be able to dress his wound as well as Spock can, even with his lesser medical training. Reluctantly, he nods, “I guess there’s no reason in arguing about it. Just pull it out and slap a bandage on it.”

Sitting still allows all of the aches from today’s excessive exercise to settle into his bones. McCoy huffs as he leans against the wall, and runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face. 

If transformation occurs near or after death, then Spock should be okay for at least long enough for McCoy to figure out something. But if he can feel the change, then maybe his first hypothesis was wrong. Maybe it’s not just death that causes transformation, but succumbing to the disease itself. If he can just stop the disease from overpowering the immune system…

Spock carefully wields a pair of tweezers, his injured arm holding McCoy’s ankle still with a firm grasp. “Is there a method of removal that you would prefer?”

“Just pull it out. I can- _shit_!”

He holds a thick, jagged edged shard between it’s prongs. The glass is stained with smears of red. A chunk of flesh sticks to the top tip. 

Spock places it on the counter, and leans forward to examine it. McCoy can feel his breath wash over the open wound. “It’s deep. Stitches might be preferable.”

“Bandages.” McCoy insists. It won’t matter much if it scars or not if they don’t find a cure first.

The analyzer dings. McCoy twists around to grab the printed readout. He doesn’t have the data to compare it with, but Spock’s in the medbay enough for his irregular stats to remain at least somewhat clearly in his mind. There’s a decrease in white blood cell count, and a fifteen point seven percent increase in various stress hormones, which for Spock is practically unheard of. It hadn’t even been that high when McCoy had accidentally struck him blind. Most interestingly is an odd drop in potassium levels, low enough that if he weren’t sitting there bandaging his foot, McCoy might’ve guessed him dead. 

“You should be dead,” McCoy informs him. Spock doesn’t seem to care too much, as he finishes tying the bandage, and returns his injured arm to it’s prone placement on his lap. “Low potassium, high levels of Cortisol and Norepinephrine… The infection didn’t make an appearance of its own, but this looks similar to an escalated case of meningitis. I’ll have to run further tests to see if it’s interacted with your DNA. Actually, why don’t you do it?”

Spock gets to his feet, lurching slightly like he’s been struck with a wave of vertigo. “And what will you be doing?”

“The infection is carried in both blood and saliva. You saw my socks.” He doubts that they’ll ever be white again, no matter how much he washes them. With how deep that shard as, and how much walking he’d done after, there’s no doubt that the infected blood has seeped inside of the cut. “I need to test myself too.”

Spock shuffles forward in silence, moving with a deliberate slowness that turns his usual grace into a lurching gawky stumble to grab the blood sample from the analyzer’s open hood. His eyes are dark, his breath carrying the sweetness of spoiling meat. He leans forward, and sniffs gingerly at the air between them. “Unfortunately, I cannot tell the difference between the scent lingering from before, and your own. I can only ascertain that you do not smell strongly of either infection or health.”

McCoy’s not really sure what to make of that. Instead, he asks, “What does infection smell like?”

“Death,” Spock replies without hesitation. He doesn’t have to elaborate. McCoy has witnessed it enough as a doctor, and more so, has seen enough needless death for him to remember the smell in distinct detail.

“And health?”

Spock’s mouth twists into a grimace. “It’s comparable to meat cooking. It smells _enticing_.”

So that’s how it encourages spread, by stoking one of the most powerful drives, common across nearly all sentient species: hunger. Interesting that it developed such a horrific, complicated method of infection. 

“I’m, uh, sorry about that.” He places a hand on Spock’s upper arm in an attempt at comfort. “I’m sure that’s distressing to feel.”

“It’s illogical to apologize for that which is not your fault.” Which, McCoy translates, means ‘thanks’. 

They pause, touching for a moment longer than necessary, before Spock breaks away, making his way towards the DNA sequencer on the other side of the room. 

“Keep talking, so I know you’re doing alright.” McCoy carefully picks up the piece of glass from the counter, and scrapes the blood and flesh clinging to it into a sample tube. It clinks as he places it in the machine. “An’ let me know when that’s done running.”

Spock is quiet for long enough for McCoy to look away from the machine, unsure if he heard. He stands swaying, attempting to put his blood sample into the DNA sequencer. It’s obvious even from across the room that his arm is shaking. It’s only been twenty minutes, he guesses. How can the infection move so quickly?

“You have a daughter.” He finally says. 

“I do.” McCoy confirms. He doesn’t talk about her often, unless he’s drinking or feeling particularly sentimental, and it surprises him that Spock even finds the subject interesting enough to ask about. “She’s twenty this year.”

The machine whirs and beeps softly as it runs, filling the space between their words with the familiar background sounds of casual science. It doesn’t hide the struggle of Spock’s breathing or the heavy beat of his own heart. 

“What… is she like?”

The point of this is to keep Spock talking, not for McCoy story hour, but he supposes if he keeps it short, and gives Spock plenty of interludes to ask leading questions, it’ll be all the same. It reminds him of last night- or was that earlier today?- when Spock had done the same to trick him into taking a nap. 

“Joanna looks more like her mama than me,” A fond smile pulls at the corners of his mouth despite himself. “But she’s got my eyes. She says she’ll enlist in the fleet too when she’s done with her schooling.”

“She…” Spock’s voice is starting to rasp, his words melting into the undercurrent of the now familiar moan. “Is she interested in the medical sciences as well?” 

“Joanna is on the science track. She says she hasn’t decided, but I’ve got a feeling she’ll follow after her old man.” 

The analyzer dings, and the readout prints. McCoy doesn’t remember his own stats nearly as well as he does Spock’s, but he assumes that they’re vaguely similar to those of the standard generally used in diagnostics. There’s a slight divot in his potassium levels, and a slight amount of alkalosis, but besides that, everything is fine. _He’s okay_ . The alkalosis is probably from his coffee- it’s a bit unusual, but not harmful either. Sometimes the natural acidic properties causes a reaction like that- except why now? There’s no such thing as coincidence when it comes to infectious disease, so what does it mean? _Coffee_ \- he thinks again, and like magic, it all clicks.

As he turns to share the news, a grin gracing his mouth as the sweet swell of victory sets him aflight, Spock crumbles. His head hits the edge of the table with an audible thud, jostling the DNA sequencer into stopping. It begins to shriek as McCoy rushes over. A bruise is already forming on his temple. He places two fingers at the pulse point at Spock’s neck. It’s there, but supremely faint. He isn’t sure what that means. Does he have an hour? Minutes? Less than that, even? The only thing he has to compare this to is Christine, and he was so panicked when she’d showed up at his door, that hardly counts. 

He turns Spock on his side, raising his arm above his head. He’s still not sure exactly what it’ll look like when crossing from sentient, thinking person, to rabid corpse, but this position should help slow the stopping of his heart. McCoy stands, and hobbles over to the materials cabinet. McCoy slams the door open. The rows and rows of chemicals shake as he runs his eyes over their labels frantically. 

Chlorogenic Acid is found in Earth grown plants, like the coffee that he’s been rationing over the past few months. The amount that he’d had must’ve accumulated, providing enough of a reservoir to combat the infection. Even if he had the time to run back to med-bay, there isn’t nearly enough coffee left to manufacture a dose large enough to save Spock, especially not this close, and it’s not like its a chemical they have on hand. He’ll have to use something else, something close enough to fool the body, but he doesn’t have the time to run extraneous tests to figure out which one is the right one. 

He spots two familiar names, Caffeoylquinic acid, and Feroliquinic acid. Both are similar, but only share some of the properties of Chlorogenic acid. But which one does he choose?

McCoy places both bottles on the counter, and without following full lab protocols, mixes a relatively safe high dose amount. It won’t kill him, but it’ll burn like hell upon injection. There’s three syringes left over from the first aid kit, neither of which are meant for anything heavy duty. He fills two to full capacity and clutches them in his hand as he kneels beside Spock. 

His chest is barely moving, and his skin is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The bruise blossoming across his forehead is the dark purple of a ripe eggplant. McCoy holds his breath and tries to ignore the still shrieking machinery to hear Spock’s breathing. It’s labored, and shallow. There’s not much time left. 

McCoy’s got to choose now. There’s no guarantee that either will work, or that it won’t do more hurt than good, but Spock turning into one of those _things_ is not an option. It’s a gamble, just like it always is, but it’s so much harder when it’s not his own life on the line. He grabs chucks one of the syringes aside, clutches the remaining one with a slick grip and injects it directly into Spock’s heart. 

No response. Although that could mean anything. It could mean he’s killed him, or it just hasn’t worked yet, or-

Spock’s body tenses, each muscle flexed to startling rigidity. He starts to seize. The sequencer shrieks steadily- one, two, three, four- pass by without a change. Is this what transformation looks like? Or is this the pain of success? McCoy presses his fingers to Spock’s pulse again, but he can’t tell if there’s been an improvement. He hadn’t taken the time to count before, and if anything is different, it’s too small to measure. 

“Hey,” McCoy barks, shaking his rock hard shoulders. “You don’t get to die, you hear? I tried too damn hard and you-” He sniffs, sinking back to his knees. “You’ve lived through worse. _You don’t get to quit now_.”

If Spock can hear him, he doesn’t show it. The sequencer continues to shriek. McCoy rises, half-falling as he sweeps his arm across the table, knocking the machine to the ground. The vial of Spock’s blood bounces, and rolls to a stop against his foot. He stares at it, incredulous of his own reaction, and angry just the same.

Now what?

“Bridge to Doctor McCoy. Bridge to Doctor McCoy, please confirm.”

McCoy kicks the vial away as he scrambles to his feet, accidentally standing on his injured foot. He half falls in his hurry to press the answer button. 

“McCoy here. Uhura, is that you?”

A burst of static. “-here with the Captain. Be- here he is.” However she managed to jury rig this, it’s not stable. Power is still limited, and even a communications engineer on Uhura’s level would have trouble with keeping the connection up. McCoy glances back at Spock. He’s still now, no longer seizing, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s the stillness of death or of healing. “Bones?” Jim calls, and the wave of relief that washes over him is like that first breath of fresh air on shore leave. 

“It’s me, Jim. Are you okay? The bridge- any more casualties?”

“-fine. No worse for wear. We-” A long burst of static drowns out his words, and when McCoy can finally hear him clearly again, there’s still a thick layer of white noise blurring his voice. He has to strain to hear what he says. “Scotty’s fixing the power. We’ll be moving onto the nearest station as soon as we’re able. Did we pass One for All?”

That last bit was more than clear. 

Another damn gamble, and McCoy’s never been the kind of man to rely on luck. 

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t the order until you give the all clear. We’ve got casualties, Bones, and more than your staff can handle.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that, Jim?” He takes a deep breath, exhales, feels every year on him sink into his skin. “Spock’s been bit. I think I’ve figured out something or other, but he’s- I might be too late.”

Jim is quiet for a long time. Long enough for McCoy to think the line’s dropped, and he’s alone again. “How long until you know for sure?”

How long has it been already? 

“Give me ten minutes.”

Another long silence, likely to ask Uhura if keeping the line open that long is plausible. 

“You have it, Bones.” Jim says, sounding more tired than he ever has. “Ten minutes, and you have to tell me if we stay out here forever, or go home. Can you-”

The line cuts off. McCoy jabs his finger against the intercom, but the light doesn’t even turn on. Whatever magic was done to connect them the first time must’ve run out. 

McCoy hobbles back to Spock’s side, ignoring the pain every time his injured foot graces the ground, and kneels beside him. He listens to his breathing; shallow, but insistent. His pulse is nearing serviceable levels, but a lingering anxiety keeps him from feeling any joy at this revelation. 

Uhura’s smooth voice, transposed with static, leaps from the wall once more. “Doctor McCoy? Doctor McCoy, respond.”

This time he ignores it, and remains by Spock’s side.

“Come on, you stubborn, Vulcan Menace!” McCoy says, but the fire’s long left him, and the words fall flat upon Spock’s pointed ears. He kneels, and feeling much like he had when he’d decided to take to the stars, firmly believing that there was nothing left for him at home, clutches Spock’s hand. 

McCoy might not have known everything about Vulcan physiology, but he’s always known that touching Spock’s hands was something that was simply not done. While he may not have always been aware of this self imposed distance, he’s always kept it. But over this five year mission, and the many, many hours spent together either in duty or because of Jim, he’s found himself wanting to initiate that connection more and more. At first, it was a daydream, and then a fantasy. When it finally became a possibility, well, one of the worst disasters ever to strike the Enterprise struck that opportunity short. 

Spock might not wake up, even if the ‘cure’ does work. Even if he does, his physiology isn’t close to the baseline required to prove that his treatment works. They be stuck out here, drifting until the Enterprise finally died, and transitioned from ship to coffin. He thinks it’ll be worse if he becomes a raving monster, rampaging and tearing people apart with his fantastical strength. 

“Wake up,” He whispers, taking Spock’s hand in his own. It feels different than his wife’s hand used to feel. Larger, and with skin more callused, but that only matches his own, worn thick by the scalpel’s handle. “Or I’ll never let you hear the end of it. I’ll visit your grave every day and nag the hell out of you for leaving me here with no one to bicker with.”

Spock’s arm rises, his eyes still half-lidded as he reaches for McCoy’s shoulder. This is it, he thinks. It didn’t work, and this time there’ll be no one to help separate them before sharp teeth sinks into the skin of his neck. The carotid artery- he’d pointed that out to Khan as the fastest way to finish him, and he wonders if Spock will remember that. His fingers dig into the scratched already on his shoulder, but McCoy hardly winces. He waits, as Spock leverages himself off of the ground, dragging himself closer to McCoy’s neck. When he’s close enough for McCoy to feel his breath, still too cool, brush against his skin, he closes his eyes, and waits for the inevitable. 

“A satisfactory threat, Doctor.” Spock murmurs, his sonorous voice sounding more like the howling of the wind than like humanoid speech. “I will remain by your side as long as I am able.”

As if the words took all of his strength from him, his grip begins to loosen, and carefully, he slumps the the ground once more. 

McCoy gets to his feet, half crawling to answer Uhura’s calm call. “It works. Spock’s alright. We’ll all be fine.”

  1. Remission



There’s still blood on the walls of the Enterprise, and enough left dead to make the discovery of a cure feel less like a victory and more like an uneven trade, but as McCoy steps on the transporter beside Jim and Spock, he can’t help but feel at least a little content at how things turned out. They won’t be able to come back aboard for two weeks, or until the clean up team is able to disinfect the ship, which will double their scheduled shore leave into about a month. Long enough to go back home to Earth, if he wanted to. 

He doesn’t want to. 

Instead, as they materialize in the transporter room of Station Amrex 13, McCoy looks forward to the standard tin box sized room, overpriced liquor, and most importantly of all, the company. 

“I look forward to reviewing the data from the station’s radio-sphere. There should be some interesting interactions between the gamma rays of the nearest black hole, and the repeated use of interstellar travel.” Spock comments idly as they stroll into the next room. 

There are posters and signs advertising sightseeing attractions such as ‘marvelous cosmic occurrences’, and ‘intergalactic phenomena’. McCoy doubts that the station has any recorded data on hand about the stuff Spock had mentioned, and that what he really wants is to view the stars without letting on that he’s interested in the aesthetics. 

He doesn’t mention it. Instead, he waves his hand halfheartedly, shooing Spock in the direction of the nearest attendant. “As long as you don’t pull your stitches or overexert yourself, wear yourself out. I’ll be putting my feet up in the cafeteria. Heard they’ve got some land-grown grub here.”

“I will strive to follow the doctor’s orders,” Spock replies wryly as he breaks off from the group.

Jim watches him walk away, and once he’s at a distance recognized as too far to overhear, he gestures at the hall up ahead. “Let me buy you a drink, Bones, and you can tell me all about whatever’s going on between you and Spock.”

“You know already?”

“Well, no, I didn’t.” He gives McCoy a cocky, shit eating grin. “But I guessed.”

McCoy scowls but doesn’t mean it. “You didn’t guess a thing.”

There are people lingering in the hall. Most of them have a bandage or two visible somewhere on their bodies, or else a bruise and a frown lingering somewhere just out of sight. There were a decent amount of infected on board, and even with the help of the station’s crew, only those who had yet to succumb were able to be saved; of those who were saved, at least half of them are still potentially infectious, as the treatment he’d stumbled upon worked better as a preventative measure than as a cure for those with certain blood types. That left about a hundred crewmen dead, or worse, whisked away for observation (read: experimentation) in some secret Federation facility. That left just about everyone either hurt or knowing someone who was hurting. Still, as McCoy and Jim walk by, just about everyone manages a grateful smile, or nod of the head. 

There are faces notably missing. Christine’s body is who knows where, as when they’d docked, men in hazmat suits began to ferry off the infected with cruel efficiency, but they’d held a private funeral for her a few days ago. McCoy had personally typed the notice to be sent to her family, cheek still smarting from the scratches she’d given him a few days prior. There are a large contingent of red shirts gone as well, but thankfully, he didn’t know any of the others who’d passed. 

Chekhov's telling a tall tale to the girl behind the souvenir counter. He leans on her glass table of cheap knickknacks, not flirting, but happy to share the tale of his heroic near-demise with a non traumatized audience. 

The crutches slipped under his arms are being waved around with the enthusiasm and ease of natural limbs, as if they are an extension of his own body. Jim ducks as one goes wild, slipping from his hand and clattering to the floor near McCoy’s feet. He hands it back to the red faced Chekhov, who is quickly joined by Sulu, who finds the mishap more entertaining than his companion. 

“Well,” Jim nudges McCoy’s shoulder with his own as they pass by the ruckus. “Are you going to tell me?”

Of course he is. It’s a rather interesting tale, if he says so himself, but he does intend to get that well earned drink first. 

“Get me a peach Julep, and I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading and commenting! This was one of the most serious works I’ve ever attempted, and I put a lot of effort into it. Besides being obsessed with Star Trek (I have a trek tattoo that my parents disapprove of), I’m also very super obsessed with zombies. I took inspiration from Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series, which had many wonderful tense and fast paced undead action sequences, the Walking dead, Znation and Train to Busan. I hope you all had as much fun as I did, and I hope that I did the characters justice. 
> 
> As I mentioned before, my next Star Trek work will be a Western, which I’ve been ruminating on even before I started this work. I think I’ll be experimenting on the format a bit, and hope to see you all there. However, I also left this story open for a sequel, and may take up that project sometime in 2020!
> 
> Happy New Years!


	7. Outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was from an earlier draft of this story, and doesn't really fit in with this narrative, but I was cleaning out my google drive today and thought it might interest some of you. This version of the story was much more gory, if you can believe it, and played more on McCoy's thoughts on Spock's human or inhuman nature.

It happens fast, as all accidents do, but in hindsight, seem so easy to avoid. McCoy's foot catches on a bottle, probably of beer or some other alcohol, and he falls as it rolls across the floor. Now, if he had simply fallen, or the bottle had merely been kicked, it likely wouldn't have had as big an impact, but as it is, it attracts the attention of the four infected crewmen sitting silently at the table in the deck seven rec room as surely as it knocks him on his ass. 

The tallest of them is familiar. He has a bimonthly standing treatment for a chronic endocrine disorder, the exact name of which eludes McCoy as the crewmen rise on shaky feet. McCoy scrambles to his feet, but in the fall, the decorative lamp he'd intended to use as a bludgeon has rolled away and out of reach. The tall one, name and condition still not coming to mind, snarls and reached forward with both arms outstretched. 

McCoy steps back, dares to look away from his looming attackers to look for his weapon, but he can't see it amongst the overturned chairs and bloody game boards. 

McCoy straightens up, reaches for the leg of a chair, and attempts to snap it off, but either he's weaker than he thought or the mass produced furniture is a lot more hardy than Spock and Jim have led him to believe, because it doesn't give. He kicks the chair ahead of him, and the infected crewman tumbles over it, slamming into the ground with an audible crack. 

The other three are right behind him; two yeomen, and a redshirt. The telltale blood trails fall from their eyes and stain the bright colors of their shirts, and the shorter yeoman has red teeth, visible through her curled lips. Even so, they still look human. Horribly ill, abd disturbing in appearance, but human nonetheless. He hasn't been able to take a look at one like it since before this whole thing started. There might be a cure, and if not, at least there might be a way to neutralize them in a kinder and more humane way. 

The thought of it, the mere chance that this might be reversible slows him down. He doesn't move back fast enough, or push another piece of furniture their way, and the girl with the bloody smile grabs his arm, tugging him closer with a strength he had not expected. He stumbles as he tries to regain his balance, feet dragging against the floor, but there's little friction to be found there. The other yeoman gets a hold on his other arm as he pushes against his captor's chest in an attempt to move her teeth away from his jugular, and he's stuck. 

With the combined force of two infected pulling on him, and his own unsteady footing, he falls, landing on his back so hard, it knocks the air out of him. The first yeoman lands on his chest, while the other falls onto a pile of chairs, and gets tangled in their legs. The yeoman closest to him digs her fingers into his shirt, a foul mockery of what might be a romantic embrace. Her mouth gapes open, and he sees meat stuck between the gaps of her incisors, blood crusted into her gums, a tooth shattered at an angle that makes it even sharper, and he knows that's going to hurt like hell if she bites him.

McCoy's hands reach for her throat as the hippocratic oath runs through his mind. His hands grasp soft flesh. He squeezes. She does not reach for her throat, or slow her attacks, but his arms do grow tired, and when he realizes this, he can't help but to yell, hoping despite the odds that someone okay, someone alive, might help him.

"Help!" He chokes. There are tears running down his cheeks, and spit building up in his mouth, and he's scared. The words rip out of his mouth anyway. "Help me! Please!"

And like magic, someone appears.

"Doctor," Spock's voice is calm, much more calm than McCoy thinks the situation calls for. With ease, always with ease, he lifts her away. The woman falls against the far wall, hard enough for the air to be forced from her lungs, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Stand back.”

McCoy gathers himself, stumbling to his feet, as Spock moves forward. His fingers grasp at the junction of neck and shoulder, but the woman doesn’t fall. Without a pause, he raises his other hand, dripping with green blood from some unseen injury, and snaps her neck. Her head continues to growl as her body lies limp. 

“Are you… okay?” 

Spock turns, and McCoy flinches. There’s something feral in the curve of his mouth, and the smear of green on his cheek. “I am uninjured. Nothing is wrong.”

Somehow, McCoy doesn’t believe that. 


End file.
